The Road Less Traveled #6
Someone in Alpha put a hole in the wall; people say I talk funny; miscellaneous shenanigans.
Note to new readers: The Road Less Traveled was a journal I started at 17 (2009) to document my experiences at West Point. I wanted to remember as much as possible. On occasion, I’ll share these journal entries in their original form here on Euphoric Recall—no edits or changes or anything like that. If you’d like to, you can read the first one here.
August 30, 2009
“In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely Highlands of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and ruined forts, ….. hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of Washington, and events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School of America. It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more beautiful can hardly be.” - Charles Dickens
"We must remember that... One man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school." -General Thucydides
Might start including some quotes every now and then if it makes sense. First one is from a postcard thing, second is one that a teacher brought up.
Somebody had a copy of "The Hangover" they said they got from the black market in New York City, so I watched about 15 minutes of that before it started skipping too much. Then Mcguire told me about this site called hulu.com, which according to him is "the best site EVER". I'm definitely thankful for it because it plays your favorite TV shows free of charge. I was actually able to watch the first episode of Rob Dydek's Fantasy Factory on my laptop today, and that was awesome. I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to at least try to keep up with the TV shows I use to watch, including The Office and Breaking Bad.
Some guys in Alpha were horse playing in their building and somebody put a hole in the hallway wall. Like a big one. Someone's side profile is in it so they probably got pushed while messing around and then skedaddled right away. We thought their TAC officer was going to crucify someone.
But because nobody will fess up to it, they got smoked. Bad. Scale of 1-10, it was like a 13. Mcguire and I just kind of sat on his bed and listened to it go down, neither of us saying a word. It's always uncomfortable when someone else is getting smoked. It's like when you were little and someone's mom spanked the crap out of them and they started crying and the whole time you're kind of sitting there wishing you were invisible. You can hear them suffering, and like picture them hitting failure on pushups but still getting screamed at to get up and stop being a little bitch. Then they just transition to something else, like cherry pickers which is where you hold your arms out like a scarecrow and twist your wrists so your fingers are pointing up and then make a grabbing motion, like you're picking cherries (everyone has to say “pick, pick, pick”) and then twist your wrists so your fingers are pointing down and make the same motion with your hands (and say “drop, drop, drop”), and just do that over and over and over again. It's bad, just try it. Honestly, getting smoked is kind of like getting tortured.
But because nobody would fess up to the hole, two different people from Alpha company are required to perform guard duty in front of the hole every hour of the day - even during class hours, seriously 24/7 - in 1 hour shifts while holding a rifle and wearing ACUs, an LBE with 2 quarts of water, and a Kevlar. There’s about 60, maybe 70 people in their company I think, after they started with 80 (same with Bravo and Charlie) but people quit.
During this last week I didn't have much time to write on here, but hopefully this coming week will be better. Labor Day weekend is within sight, so I'm planning on leaving post to do more than buy supplies and required items while traveling on foot. I had to spend $50 dollars on dress shoes, stamps, manilla envelopes, a sowing kit, and razors today. I hate spending money on that kind of crap because it forces me to hoard my money even more than usual. I always end up feeling like I just wasted money that could have been used for going to the movies, or actually buying something at the mall for once instead of people-watching (a hobby of mine).
People here sometimes ask me where I'm from because I have an "accent", which is weird because I don't think people from Michigan speak differently. Of course, everyone here talks differently. My roommate is from Texas, and you can definitely tell he has an accent sometimes. Colby Miller, who's down the hall from me, is from Alabama; he sounds like some of the movie characters from "Forrest Gump" (which is a classic film, I might add). A couple of guys I know are from Tennessee, including Ferrebee who sits next to me in my english class. He's 21 and was prior enlisted before coming here. He told me the town he grew up in is actually called Hickville, and yes, it consists of mainly farms and cows, and yes, you can tell he's "country".
I'm not struggling with English at all. We had to start off with sentence formulas and stuff, and I hate that crap, but other than that, I've been straight doing work in that class. My teacher, Dr. Snair, graded the first two papers we had to turn in to him already. He said that in 6 years of teaching here, he's only given out 3 A+'s; I got number 3 on my first paper. Supposedly, I guess. Math has always been my worst subject, but so far it's been alright. On average I end up doing a minimum of 3 and 1/2 hours of math every day, which includes a 2 hour class, so I definitely put a boat load of time into it.
On Friday night, at around 0300, some morons from Charlie Company decided to place all four of our vacuum cleaners on each of the Bravo Company floors, and turned them on simultaneously. Of course, everyone was dead asleep, and the only reason anyone actually woke up was because of the terrible, burning rubber smell. This was probably a good thing, because one of the vacuums caught fire, and the fire alarm would have gone off if we hadn't done anything about it. This would have led to even more chaos, because we don't have any kind of fire plan set up, meaning if there was an actual fire, we're supposed to find our way to safety on our own.
Saturday night was pretty crazy, to say the least. Most people stumbled back in through the door drunk as hell at around 0200. Two kids on my floor almost got into a fist fight over an Oreo. One kid even decided to run around naked with a Kevlar, goggles, cape, and his boots on. I thought they were going to put the entire battalion on restriction, because of all the stuff that happened, but miraculously, nobody in the BTD (Battalion Tactical Department) found out about anything. But I'm almost positive some kids will be kicked out within the next month. People are taking weekend privileges for granted, and if they find out about all the underage drinking that went on in the barracks and the alcohol people brought back, we're screwed.
