by Pat Conroy
3. Since the report is incorrect, it obviously was intentional.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “On Barracks Roof Unauth, 19 April 1967,” D/L dated 21 April 1967.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. I was blown up there by a sudden gust of wind and while up there I decided to check it out for suitability for a Senior Class Party.
3. As you can see, the offense was unintentional if there was any offense at all.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Late W E L, 5 March 1967,” D/L 8 March 1967.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. That screaming clock makes my blood run cold.
Gabriels trump! The big bull elephant
Squeals “Late” to the parched herd. The lambs bleat
And jabber that it’s speed they want.
Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke,
Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar
You cannot leave a friend wishing to revoke
His loved ones and home for The Citadel star.
And suddenly, as in a flash of light,
I saw great nature working out her plan.
She called for care from mastadon to mite,
“Safe driving;” Chevy speed groped thru the night.
On that long road we came to seek mankind;
Here were the darkling converts penitent home
Circumstance upheld us into sin quite blind,
And you are left to judge us from your dome.
3. The offense was unintentional.
SUBJECT: Explanation of report: “Sitting in car during ESP; 9 Oct. 67;” D/L 16 Oct. 67
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. On the evening upon which the offense took place I was insouciantly dissertating most ardently with a denizen of resplendent pulchritude. A spate was cascading synchronously from the firmament. Such being the case, the casements were aroused to repell the inundation. The obstreperous radio was famiarized with reverberation and tintinnabulation to such a proponderous magnitude that the grandiloquent and symphonic tones of the bugle were inadvertedly obliterated. Due to the afore stated facts, and the inconsistency of my chronometer with the sideral time preferencially utilized by this venerated institution, I was incapable of complying with the accepted norms.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report; “late R W E L, 4 March 1968,” D/L 6 March 1968.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. Upon returning from a long weekend my car had internal troubles in Jacksonville, Florida. Being the good-guy that I am I immediately looked for a hospital to take it to. The only one available, being that it was a Sunday afternoon, was Obi’s Hospital (alias “Obi’s 24 Hour Garage”) run by Ed L. Obi, President. He put the car on the rack and after a few minutes I met its doctor. He was Sonny the Executive Vice President of Obi’s. He had degrees of all kind. First was a degree from Boondock Mechanics School, next was a diploma from Hicksville Transmission Repair. Ed Obi came in and gave his diagnosis and said he would have to operate. The operation lasted 20 hours. Being the great doctor he is, Sonny made the patient recover in record time. Upon the speedy recovery we thanked Ed Obi and his assistant and chief resident Sonny and proceeded on our journey.
SUBJECT: Reconsideration of Awards: “Gross Personal Appearance on Campus, 16 Nov.,” D/L Nov. 29, 1967.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is incorrect.
2. When I read the D/L bearing the damnable report of above, I was filled with shock and disbelief. Not only was I charged of being in gross attire while on campus, but it also seemed that I was the one who had reported me. Regaining my composure, I felt that the only sensible thing to do was to sit down and ask myself why I had pulled me. During the course of the discussion I found out many interesting things. I found that I was in a state of undue excitement when I entered the report. Apparently I had no idea of what I was doing at the time. This seemed like a logical explanation to me. I also found that I considered myself a rather chic dresser, despite my somewhat limited wardrobe. Kind of the Beau Brummel of the Cadet Set. At any rate, both of us, or should I say both of me, decided that the report was a terrible mistake and that I should be showered with merits for my rather astute dressing habits.
TO: Commandant
1. Explanation of Report: D/L 3 Dec. 1965, “Absent Parade 11/20/65.”
a. Report is incorrect.
b. It is a dirty lie aimed at slandering my good name and reputation.
c. There was no offense.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Being too Thin, 9 December,” D/L 10 December.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. The skeletal structure of my body is located too close to the surface of my skin, and, therefore, I appear to be undernourished. However, measures have been initiated to correct the situation.
3. The offense was unintentional.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is believed to be correct.
2. The excitement, tension, pressure and pain of the two days just prior to the 26th of February had caused the ratio of gastric acid to all the other necessary and abundant materials in my stomach to sky rocket. This completely abnormal ratio plus the Sunday special of Coward Hall mixed in with a time factor equaled one thing—the latrine. It just so happened that the solution came out at the same time confinements began. This unfortunate incident caused a momentary delay in reporting for confinements.
3. The offense was caused by “Mother Nature.”
SUBJECT: Reconsideration of Award: “Telephones ESP, 5 October,” D/L 7 October.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. Alas, I am guilty.
2. On the fateful day in question my dearly beloved called me from many miles away (long distance) and the fateful hour of 2000 (8:00 P.M.) was the only time in which she could successfully reach me, although she had been trying to contact me for many hours that infamous day. She had the heartbreaking task of informing me that this weekend, the one in which both of us were anxiously awaiting, would be just another weekend since she could not come down. Surely the gods that be must realize that this alone is enough and perhaps more punishment then any mere, humble, mortal can endure.
3. The offense was unintentional.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report; “MRI Too Much Hair 12 January,” D/L 14 January.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is incorrect.
2. While standing at formation
They called a noon inspection.
When they stepped in front of me All that they could see
Was a curl that did flap
From beneath my little cap.
He studdered and he snorted
And his face became distorted.
It was all that I could bear
To be pulled for too much hair.
3. There was no violation.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Nose Too Long, 9 December,” D/L 10 December.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. It is obvious that my nasal organ does protrude beyond the normal length, however, it is also obvious that this is a result of events over which I had no control. Thus, I feel that I cannot be held responsible in the final judgment.
3. The offense was unintentional.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Throwing food in Mess Hall, 4/1/66,” D/L 4/1/66.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. The incident occurred during the noon meal on a Friday. We had chocolate cream pie for desert. I was standing by my chair joking with a friend about splattering him with my pie, which I was holding in my hand. Another of my friends came up to me. We began bumping each othe
r, both being filled with the feeling of jollity which is only present on Friday. My hand was bumped into my pie. In retribution, I turned to wipe my hand, which by this time was filled with the remnants of my delicious chocolate cream pie, on the back of my bumptious friend. My friend, unfortunately, had begun to run away. Thus my wipe was correctly an extended swipe. Another friend was splattered in the holocaust, and he also being of a revengeful nature, wiped his share of my cream pie on my unsuspecting and defenseless clean gray shirt. Approximately fifteen minutes had passed when, to my surprise, the O.C. appeared in that hallowed area of the mess hall which seats Company T. He expressed his displeasure at the childish pie-burst, and asked that the sinners describe their damnable actions to him in writing. This I have done. I close with the hope that the reader of this epistle will stop for a minute, imagine himself a humble cadet for a moment, and realize that a cadet on Friday feels joy which is often uncontrollable, but which joy is nevertheless, thanks to the cadet’s iron will, channeled into such harmless diversions as the inadvertent wiping of chocolate cream pie. 3. The offense was unintentional.
THE SOUTH CAROLINA CORPS OF CADETS
The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.
15 November 1966
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Sitting with girl in East Stand,” 12 Nov. 66, D/L 14 Nov. 66.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. We, my date and I, arrived at the scene of the gridiron classic (Johnson Hagood Stadium), early in the afternoon and long before the opening kickoff. Unfortunately, she was feeling rather poorly (possibly a consequence of the preceding meal in Coward Hall?) and we unfortunately were forced to sit directly in front of several senior Cadets who sported airhorns, klaxon horns, and an assortment of cow bells. We sat in this locale throughout the first half, and possibly our choice of seats resulted in my date’s subsequent headache and periodic chills. She pleaded that we move away or leave the contest entirely. As a compromise measure, and an effort to remain a gentleman and a cadet, I offered to take her into the sun and away from the noise. The only area where both of these factors existed was the East Stand. We crossed the gridiron while the Summerall Guards were forming up, and proceeded with haste to Section M. Located in that section was a school acquaintance, another female by the name of Patricia MacClemests. She was dating a “knob” from Band Company, and sitting with the knob’s parents. Throughout the half time entertainment, my date showed signs of improvement. But as the second half began, she was still not ready to suffer the torture of our senior date section seats. The game began and due to her state, I did not feel it wise to bring her back across the field as she may have gotten hurt in the end zone area as the Dogs seemed to occupy the area quite frequently. The other factor was that of the unknown. Were our seats still empty or had they been usurped? This then was why in a rare display of Cadet chivalry, I placed the well being of my date above the monumental consequences of the just and omnipotent Assistant Commandant.
3. The offense was not intentional, but it was an act of mercy sparing my date for unnecessary suffering. I rest my case.
SOUTH CAROLINA CORPS OF CADETS
The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina
24 March 1964
SUBJECT: Reconsideration of Award (No Front Sticker 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 March 1964, D/L 23 March 1964)
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. There are and always have been Citadel stickers on my car. However, on the date of the report my front sticker was probably covered with an advertisement sticker. Several days before the report was entered, as a practical joke someone put 10 or 12 stickers on my windows, bumpers, hood, etc. of my car. I took the stickers off as soon as I discovered them but since there were so many, I must have neglected to see the one covering my front Citadel sticker. Now, as a result of the report and the shock of seeing 40 demerits in conjunction with my name, I have removed that sticker which covered my front Citadel sticker. Both of my Citadel stickers are now clearly visible and readable at a distance. As proof of this, I submit the following photographs taken on March 24 at 1130 hours at a distance of 300 feet from my car. The first photograph was enlarged four times and the second one approximately thirty times. As evident from the second photograph, my number 64-125 is clearly readable to the average man with good vision.
3. The offense was unintentional.
SUBJECT: Explanation of Report: “Absent Fire Drill, 24 Oct.,” D/L Oct. 27, 1967.
TO: The Commandant of Cadets.
1. The report is correct.
2. I was on fourth division fighting the consuming flames of exhaustion.
ME AND THE BOO
I just missed being selected regimental commander my senior year at The Citadel. Only five hundred cadets had a better chance of being chosen. Jim Probsdorfer, a glittering example of military virtue, edged me out in a fiercely contested battle. To help sooth my ruffled feathers, I was offered a position of command and responsibility as a senior private in the third squad, second platoon of Romeo Company. I accepted the job with the poker face and jutting jaw of the defeated soldier.
From the very beginning of my tenure at The Citadel, I never qualified in anyone’s mind as a model cadet. Nor did anyone prophesy that my name would one day be compared to Hannibal’s or Napoleon’s in discussions about military strategists. I never learned to clean a rifle, never cured the odd, bouncing walk that cost “R” Company several parades, and never felt comfortable in the uniform other cadets wore like a pelt. The shock of “hell night,” when I stood terrified before the onslaught of a world gone mad, when the cadre shrieked and brutalized the eight squads of freshmen offered to them, never left me. To see plebe after plebe fall to the quadrangle, sweating hideously, unconscious and numb, bothered my frail sensibilities. To see arms go limp from pushups, legs grow useless from running in place, and voices grow hoarse from screaming puzzled me. To see the hooked noses and bloodshot eyes of upperclassmen pressed against my face, their fetid breath hot against my neck and ears, their mouths cruel and twisted beneath the glare of the barracks lights, terrified me. The shock of this one long night of tolerated sadism ended any love affair I might have had with the plebe system. My goal in life from that moment was to somehow escape from being sucked into the delusion that screaming lunatics with stripes on their shoulders and bars on their hats were even remotely connected with leadership. Nor did I believe the confines of the fourth battalion represented the world as it was or as it should be. My Citadelian personality was forged on the second night of my college career when after an hour of intense, magnified racking, a bugle blew mercifully and I took one step toward my room, fell to my knees, crawled to my bed, and spent a sleepless night wondering how the fates had plotted against me and how in God’s name the furies had managed to bring me under this vindictive jurisdiction.
It was a hell of a beginning, but traumatic enough to force me to develop theories of survival which were to serve me well until the day of my graduation. The 720 day theory of grayness was my first project. The color gray dominated the entire landscape of the college. Gray walls, gray uniforms, gray buildings, gray food in the mess hall, gray expressions on the faces of antiquated professors who delivered gray lectures in cobweb voices—the grayness of concealment became the clothing I assumed, and with this weapon I was able to pass through the portals of Lesesne Gate with remarkable unremarkability. I blended in, assumed a cloak of anonymity, tried to straddle the line beside the abyss, and hoped to escape the scarred outlook I saw daily in the faces of young men who had already been through the system.
I stayed away from The Boo. I have already described the initial moment his voice rent the harmony and comradery of the Isle of Palms outing. As administrator of discipline and grand inquisitor for the Commandant’s Department, I reasoned there was no necessity to upset the equilibrium I tried so hard to maintain by joking with The Boo. In my initial paranoia, everyone w
ho inhabited the nether regions of Bond Hall, everyone who weighed and measured demerits, and everyone who had any connection with discipline or punishment was anathema. This was the myopic freshmen universe I had created around me. So we moved in different circles and my footwork in avoiding him gradually grew more skillful. Had certain things happened the way they should have happened, we never would have crossed swords, nor would our horns have locked in combat, nor would we have become friends. But in the final days of my junior year, I had become gray enough, in my opinion, to risk adding a dash of color to my bland exterior. The mollusk emerged from his shell for a brief excursion into notoriety. It was the failure of this excursion that brought me before The Boo, the high tribunal of justice who caught me not in my clothes of gray, but in my robes of bright crimson.
It began innocently enough. I was a member of the Shako, the campus literary magazine whose primary objective often seemed to be the death of literature rather than the creation of it. Regardless of the merits of the magazine, Jeff Benton, the editor in chief, appointed me poetry editor at the end of my junior year. The position seemed innocuous enough to coexist with the theory of grayness. Everything seemed fine until one sultry April afternoon a surreptitious knock interrupted a daily nap. My roommate stopped lifting weights and ushered a rather cadaverous senior, with nervous hands and quick, black eyes, into the room. He walked to my bed, shot a backward glance at the door, looked at my roommate and said, “Can we trust him?” Since Mike had returned to his weights, I told the stranger he had nothing to fear from anyone in room 4428. “I have a poem. I want you to read it.” “OK,” I said, flashing the effervescent wit which always stood me in such good stead. I read the poem quickly. Compared to the poetry I was receiving from other cadets, his offering ranked as a minor masterpiece. “Good. We’ll print it in the graduation issue.” “You don’t see it,” he said. “See what,” I answered. Then I saw it. The poem I held in my hands was a tersely written, non-rhyming iambic grenade. If you took the initial letter from the seventeen lines, the words “Webb and Tucker suck” slapped you in the face. General Tucker and Colonel Webb reigned as the arch-villains in cadet life at that particular moment in history, and the thought of twisting a secret blade into their backs without their knowledge appealed to me immensely. “Mum is the word, my fine lad,” I said, patting his back. He smiled gratefully and disappeared into the silent afternoon. Mike had just finished his ritualistic twenty bench presses and was starting his squat thrusts when our visitor departed.