Dress Gray

by Lucian K. Truscott

  “Hand, you seem to have your shit relatively well together. Now, you help your roommates here locate their shit, show them how to assemble their uniforms, and the three of you be downstairs in squad formation in five minutes. Get used to it, gentlemen. Co-operate and graduate. Work together. Not one of you little smacks should exit this room for a formation until the three of you are ready to go together. Remember it. Co-operate and graduate. Now, function.”

  Hand fished around on the floor and helped Dippel and Woodruff get themselves together. When the last epaulet was snapped into place, he checked his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. They were ten minutes late. They ran downstairs. The rest of the squad was in formation, waiting.

  “Drive into Late Ranks, smackheads.” Slaight indicated an imaginary line at right angles with the rest of the squad. The occupants of Room 1144 fell in where Slaight pointed.

  “This, gentlemen, is Late Ranks. It is where you will stand when you are late to formation. It is not a good place to stand. If you are late occasionally, you will spend your free time decorating my wall with the sweat off your skinny little necks. If you are late repeatedly, you will receive demerits. If you receive too many demerits, you will walk punishment tours on the area during your free time on weekends. You do not want to be late, gentlemen. Ever.” Slaight motioned with his hand for the three to join the rest of the squad. Over and over again, Slaight dismissed the squad and had them form up in the area, running them back and forth up and down the four flights of stairs to the fourth floor at the 11th Division where they lived. He drilled them. Right face. Left face. About face. Forward march. To the rear march. Column right march. Column left march. Hand salute. More dismissals and formations … endless yelling and running, sweating and searching, marching and turning and stopping and starting….

  The air was peppered with words which would become as familiar as their names: sally port, the arched walkway through the barracks to the mess hall … stoops, long covered porches on the first floor of the barracks … the 11th Division, the stairwell containing the squad’s rooms … the sinks, the basement lockers and showers and johns where everyone in the division shaved and bathed. And naturally, smack, bean, crot, smackhead, beanhead, endless variations on unique cadet expletives designed to let the cream of the nation’s crop know that they had just arrived at the bottom of the carton, where they would sour for the next eleven months.

  All afternoon the upperclassmen prepared the new plebes … their uniforms, haircuts, marching, shined shoes, scrubbed faces and necks and hands … all of it necessary for the 5 P.M. swearing-in ceremony, to be held in public view on Trophy Point, overlooking the Hudson to the north, and to which the entire class of new cadets would march, organized into squads, platoons, and companies, looking, it was hoped, like a crack regiment of hardened soldiers. Like cadets.

  It has long been an integral part of West Point tradition that a complete transformation of civilian boy into cadet take place in the space of a single day. The parents of many new cadets remain on academy grounds during the first day of Beast Barracks, and in fact are so encouraged by the academy. Cadet-conducted tours on foot and by bus are offered for parental enjoyment, during which they are carefully instructed in the ways and traditions of the academy. The parents are steered clear of the main area of barracks, of course. What fun would the swearing-in ceremony be if they had spent the day witnessing the creation of a plebe? Blissfully ignorant of what’s really going on at West Point on the first day of Beast Barracks, most parents stay for the swearing in. They are assured it will be a truly impressive spectacle.

  “But don’t expect to recognize your sons,” the parents are cautioned by their cadet-guides.

  It is the academy’s intent that parents are not able to recognize their sons as they march the quarter mile from the barracks to Trophy to take the Oath of Allegiance. That so many raw civilian boys are turned, almost magically, into a uniformed, well-disciplined, and handsome military unit is central to an important but nonpublic portion of the mission of the Military Academy, which is to enhance and perpetuate its own image and power at all times. And what better opportunity than the first day of Beast Barracks, an astounding visual success, all those young cadets marching with seeming expert precision down Thayer Road, forming without a hitch around Trophy Point, raising their hands, taking the oath with a single … well, older, man’s voice, booming out over the Hudson and across the academy, a pledge in unison to everything the parents and the army and the academy and the nation stand for. An Oath of Allegiance.

  By July 1, 1967, this had been going on for 165 years. The impression given by the first day of Beast Barracks has been as lasting and impressive as the history of the academy itself. In the morning, over a thousand young boys, rank amateurs, walked into West Point, through the portals of those gray stone buildings, from whence they would not emerge until 5 P.M. By then, they had become professionals. The response of parents, press, dignitaries, and tourists would be nothing less than total awe. For if it had been possible to accomplish such a complete transformation—from boy to cadet—if it had been possible to accomplish so much in so little time, just think what would happen to their sons over the next four years!

  Indeed. Think of it. Samantha Hand considered the fate of her brother as she watched him being sworn in out on Trophy Point. Now he was a cadet. It had been his dream. She had opposed her brother’s choice of West Point over a long list of other colleges he had been accepted to. It had nothing to do with her relationship with Ry Slaight, at the time, blooming. The thought of her brother in that gray uniform, the hat, the black shiny shoes—the image made her uneasy. She really couldn’t explain her opposition to West Point, so she had little effect on her brother. And once he’d made up his mind and accepted his appointment to the academy, she said no more. Even when she and Ry had their bitter split in May, she’s said nothing to her brother. What was his business was his business.

  In part as a reaction to her brother’s choice of West Point, in part because of her split with Ry Slaight, she had decided to spend her junior year at Vassar abroad, studying art history. On July 2, 1967, she would leave for Paris. She was glad to be leaving … her brother, Ry Slaight, West Point, America. In the last year, everything had turned sour. Listening to the voices of the young cadets, the Oath of Allegiance, she shuddered. It was all too much.

  That night after supper, the new cadets were herded into South Auditorium of Thayer Hall, where they signed the official documents making them members of the United States Army with the official rank of “Cadet.” This was the real “Oath of Allegiance,” a contract promising five years’ active duty service in the Regular Army in return for an education at West Point. Confronted with the actual paper work, several members of the class of 1971 walked out of the auditorium and announced to the nearest officer that they wanted to quit. They were the first. More than 10 per cent of the class would drop out for one reason or another before Beast Barracks was over. But not David Hand, not any of the guys in Third Squad, First Platoon, Sixth New Cadet Company—Slaight’s squad.

  That night studying the records of all his squad members, Slaight resolved he’d do his best to be fair with David Hand. But he wouldn’t go overboard because once he went steady with his sister. And he wouldn’t hold his sister’s recent behavior against the kid. It ran against Slaight’s grain. Among his classmates, he was known as tough but fair. He was proud of the image.

  On a single bunk in Room 1144, David Hand lay awake after taps. A thin chain of thoughts tied together the day’s experiences for the New Cadet. He knew he was different. Only a few hours in the company of his rather peculiar roommates proved that much. They hardly knew which way was up, and he’d at least figured that out. Then there was the deep shit he’d stepped in once or twice that day … have to stay out of the way of the first sergeant … and Slaight … now, here was a guy who was a total mystery, despite his transparent play-acting at times … it was tough to know what to expect
from a guy like Slaight. Beast Barracks, in short, was going to be a tough grind, much worse than he’d expected … but now he, David Hand, was a cadet, albeit a “new” cadet. And he was going to make it. He’d show them. He’d show them … all of them. David Hand would make himself someone to be reckoned with.

  Downstairs, footsteps sounded on the galvanized steel steps of the 11th Division, the officer in charge making his rounds. A dozen yards away, the mess hall purred. Outside the window of Room 1144 facing Central Area, the area clock struck 11 P.M., and moments later, David Hand slept.

  20

  The days of July 1967 passed for the plebes in Beast Barracks like each step of a reveille run … thud … thud … thud … thud … a plodding, sluggish motion, pain in the legs and the lungs and the arms, fear somewhere in the back of the mind it would never end, you’d be out there plodding along, beating the pavement, absorbing the pain, forever. To say that Beast Barracks was depressing for most plebes would so grossly understate the emotional experience as to render it meaningless. And if there was one thing Beast Barracks had, it was meaning.

  The stuff they made you do! Stuff like clothing formations. The whole company is down in the area in front of the barracks, and the company commander gets up there on the stoops, and the plebes are bracing, the upperclassmen all standing around with their arms folded, chuckling, and the company commander shouts so everyone can hear:

  “ALL RIGHT, YOU SMACKS, YOU’VE GOT EXACTLY FIVE MINUTES TO GET YOUR FANNIES UP TO YOUR ROOMS AND INTO FULL DRESS GRAY UNDER LONG OVERCOATS UNDER ARMS AND BE BACK DOWN HERE STANDING IN FORMATION … NOW, MOVE OUT!” He’d yell it all so fast it was hard to understand what he’d said. Plebes were scurrying everywhere, whispering to each other as they pounded up the stairs at the double time….

  What the fuck did he say? Full dress what under what?

  They’re flipping through the Blue Book, the four-inch-thick three-ring binder of cadet regulations, to find out what in hell full dress gray under long overcoats under arms is all about. Finally someone yells in the hallway …

  Here it is! I found it! It’s all that shit they just issued us yesterday, the weird long coats and the new pants and the jackets with the tight black collars and zippers up the front. Says here, we gotta wear our cross-belts and ammo boxes and breastplates and waist plates and carry our goddamn rifles. Jesus! All this shit in five minutes? They think we’re supermen or something?

  And all the time the upperclassmen are standing around downstairs in the area, lounging on the stoops, drinking Cokes … Cokes! Plebes hadn’t tasted Cokes in days, weeks! The upperclassmen are lounging around waiting, knowing, just knowing that the uniform the company commander yelled out was impossible for the plebes to strap themselves into within five minutes. The plebes were up there in a state of Total Shock, spasing around like a bunch of junior high school boys getting dressed after gym class, afraid they’ll be late to English…. The upperclassmen are laughing and joking and punching each other in the arm, bored with the whole business by now. Beast Barracks—almost as much of a grind for them as for the plebes, eighteen-hour days, endless formations, sometimes fifteen to twenty formations a day, formation for shots and formations for uniform fittings and formations for drill and formations for classes and formations for poop-sheet signing and formations for new boots and formations for meals and formations for special announcements and formations for bayonet drill and formations for the daily dozen and formations for special lectures after supper and formations for slide shows about Vietnam and formations for more goddamn uniform fittings and formations for more goddamn shots and more formations and more formations and it just seemed like it never ended. So when there was an hour of free time, it made a perverse kind of sense … it was funny, when you thought about it … to have clothing formations, make the plebes run back and forth from the area to their rooms to the area to their rooms to the area, changing from one uniform to another—mixing up the uniforms, like as for physical education under raincoats under arms … mix up the little fuckers till you had them wondering where they could possibly find another piece of clothing, till their rooms were piled with discarded uniforms, parts and pieces of uniforms, ripped out of their closets and wall lockers, strewn about the room in a huge confusing mess, one guy’s shit getting mixed up with another guy’s shit so they’d be up all night sorting out the madness … then form up the company about three minutes before taps in their drawers, get them standing out there in the night air with nothing on but their baggy old GI shorts and their shower clogs, so guys from other companies are looking out their windows and pointing at this entire company of plebes, formed up neat as you please in ranks of squads and platoons, and none of them wearing anything but their saggy old GI drawers and shower clogs … the upperclassmen are holding their sides, they’re laughing so hard, it’s so goddamn funny, they’ve all been through the same shit themselves and looking back on it, you realize how ridiculous you must have looked, and now you’re standing around the area drinking Cokes and waiting for your plebes to do what you tell them to do so you can watch and you can laugh at the madness you’ve created … and suddenly you realize that what you’re really doing is laughing at your fuckin’ self, two years ago….

  Beast Barracks. It just went on and on and on and on … a thing with a life of its own, seemingly apart from the plebes, the upperclassemen, the tactical officers—a tradition. That’s what it was. A tradition. The tradition. Without Beast Barracks, there would be no plebes. Without Beast Barracks, there would be no cadets. Without Beast Barracks, there would be no West Point. Without Beast Barracks the academy would not run, it would not function, the academy might as well just dry up and blow away. Beast Barracks was it. Beast Barracks was West Point at its most pure. Beast Barracks was West Point in its truest form. Beast Barracks was West Point in its finest hour. Beast Barracks was West Point with everything that made the academy run just hanging out there in the breeze, West Point with its trousers off, West Point stripped down to its goddamn drawers, West Point stripped down to the thing which created plebes, down to Beast fuckin’ Barracks.

  Upperclassmen used to stand around on the stoops at night, drinking Cokes and joking and cursing West Point.

  Out in the fuckin’ world … if they knew what it was, was producing all those bodies they watched on their TV screens every November, marching into that stadium down in Philly for the Navy game … out in the fuckin’ world if they really knew what goes down up here, if they knew the shit going on during Beast Barracks … they’d pull the handle and flush the place right into the Hudson, is what they’d do … all those liberal senators and congressmen and do-gooders, they’d die if they knew what was happenin’ to the little boys they were appointing to this place every goddamn year … they’d have fuckin’ heart seizures is what they’d have … they see these beans bouncing around here like a bunch of goddamn Ping-Pong balls, fightin’ each other for little bits of food at the mess hall table, arguing and punching each other out ‘cause one guy steps on the toe of another guy’s shoe he’d just spent two hours spit-shinin’ … fighting and yelling and crying in the night for their mommies ‘cause they’re lonely and homesick and they miss their little fuckin’ girl friends back home in Palookaville … waitin’ for the goddamn mail every day like it was some kinda holy communion or somethin’ … and sobbin’ and cryin’ in their pillows when the letter they were expectin’ didn’t come … comin’ to the squad leader’s room in the middle of the night all teary-eyed and weepy, wantin’ to quit, askin’ for special permission to call home so’s they could ask their mommies and their daddies if they could quit … every one of the little bastards thought about quittin’ at least once, most of them a lot more than once … rare was the goddamn beanhead who didn’t feel the stinging, crippling pain of self-doubt … rare was the goddamn beanhead who didn’t wonder what in fuck he was doin’ at West fuckin’ Point, wonder what had possessed him to apply to the goddamn place in the first place, wonder what had
made him accept the goddamn appointment from the goddamn congressman, wonder why in fuck he hadn’t quit on the first day of Beast when he saw what the fuck was actually going on, wonder why right now—now—he didn’t just up and take a goddamn walk out the main gate, take a walk downtown and get on a bus and go down to New York and get himself out to the airport and get on the first goddamn plane and get his fuckin’ ass home….

  The upperclassmen would stand around at night and drink Cokes and listen to the noises the plebes made, those familiar noises of Beast Barracks … the pounding of feet up and down the steel stairs as they ran back and forth to the showers, the scratching of pencils and pens on paper as they wrote home to their girl friends, the soft whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a shoebrush shining shoes, the raised voices of an argument over whose turn it was to sweep up the ghost turds collected under the beds every day like devils, the screamed curse when a can of Brasso fell off a desk and spilled all over somebody’s boots, ruining two weeks’ work of building up a base of polish necessary for a spit shine, cursing and cursing because the guy knew he’d catch hell in ranks the next day with his improperly shined boots no matter the reason his boots weren’t spit-shined … Nothing was fair.

  The upperclassmen would stand around and listen and joke and down deep inside most of them, they knew what they were doing was listening to and joking about themselves, because they’d all been plebes, not so long ago. In fact, it was the shared experience of having been plebes, just like those guys upstairs, which held them together as upperclassmen … which held them to their squads, attached them to the plebes who were theirs, tied them like big brothers to a bunch of kids they’d only known for a few days. They spent eighteen hours a day with those plebes. Sometimes more. They saw them in dress uniform, ready for chapel on Sunday mornings … and they saw them naked, down in the showers when each plebe was required to approach his squad leader, supervising shower formations, and report: