Duty First

by Ed Ruggero

  That spring, when the air campaign against Serbia began, Bradley and the other firsties followed the news closely. Cadets are not privy to national strategy, of course, and they do not have any special training to help them predict what might happen. But they are educated people who read newspapers, and they’re interested in current events that will affect them personally.

  Bradley believes he will go to Bosnia at some point. In fact, that was one of the reasons he chose the First Division, whose soldiers make up a good portion of the force in the Balkans. (Bradley, with his high class rank, had his pick of any assignment offered to the Class of’99.)

  “I think it will be a good place to learn my profession,” Bradley said. “A good place to learn how to be a platoon leader. I mean, I’ll actually be doing the job I’m supposed to do.”

  His choice is ironic, given that he had been involved in a student debate on U.S. policy on Bosnia while he was in high school. He was opposed to American intervention and argued strongly against it, but now he sees government policy as something that generated missions for the military.

  The first class, not surprisingly, spends a lot of time talking about what is happening in the Balkans. Bradley tells the group that his roommate, an Army soccer player, “never really spent a lot of time thinking about what it will mean to be in the Army. Now he’s going to the 82nd Airborne, and he thinks about it a lot.”

  A recent newsmagazine photo showed soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in Albania, where they were to provide security for the Apache helicopters that joined the NATO force in April.

  “He’s got it taped up in the room,” Bradley says.

  For all the talk of a messy involvement in the Balkans, the club is not a gloomy place; instead, it’s filled with the buzz of approaching adventure. Cadets play pool and sing along with the jukebox. They wear baseball caps and jeans and T-shirts from other colleges and talk about what they’re going to do on the sixty days of leave between graduation and the beginning of training. They are on the verge of great changes, new adventures, and more hard work, and the very air around them crackles with anticipation.

  The next day, Saturday, is like a postcard of spring. By 7:00 A.M. the sprawling barracks are humming with activity. Cadets in BDUs and others in running gear pass. One goes by on roller blades, looks up from the rhythmic movement of his feet on the pavement to greet an officer. “Mornin’, sir.”

  The mountains on the east side of the river are lightly painted in greens and yellows. Through the open barracks windows come the sounds of cadets getting ready for Saturday morning inspection of rooms, the most thorough of the week.

  Pete Haglin, the plebe determined to be an artillery officer, gets off a yellow school bus in front of Lee Barracks. He and two dozen other sleepy cadets in BDUs have just come from the start line of the Sandhurst Competition, where they cheered their company team. Haglin is happy that the semester is drawing to a close, but his earlier worries about whether or not he could handle West Point academics were right on target. His summer leave hangs in the balance; he may wind up in summer school for chemistry.

  “I’ve got about a D minus minus right now. But I figure if I get about 80 percent of the points left [on the final exam], I’ll pass with a C.”

  Summer school, called Summer Term Academic Program, or STAP, can eat up a cadet’s entire leave. If he goes to STAP, Haglin will begin classes before graduation day and will stay at West Point through June. He’ll get a long weekend off—assuming he passes his second go at chemistry—before reporting to Camp Buckner for summer training with his class.

  As late as the 1970s STAP veterans were “awarded” a black star to wear on their cadet bathrobes. It was an ironic badge of honor, the equivalent of an academic Purple Heart (the medal given those wounded in combat). Eventually, the academy leadership decided that such an award did little to foster a serious approach to study. Black stars are no longer handed out.

  Two firsties from Kevin Bradley’s company F-2, are among those coming out to cheer on their team. Nick Albrecht is from Ohio; he wears the crossed cannons of the field artillery, the branch he will join in a few weeks. Ron Havener, who is from the far north of California, wears crossed rifles; he’ll head to Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of the infantry, for his training. Albrecht mentions Captain Brian Turner, their Tac.

  “He had us over for dinner the other night,” Albrecht says. The seniors laugh as they describe Turner’s apartment, which is decorated in bachelor simplicity.

  “He’s got a couch, a recliner, and a stack of green plastic chairs,” Havener describes. “We practically had to bring our own silverware.”

  If the two aren’t impressed by Turner’s decorating skills, they are impressed by his hospitality.

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever been to a Tac’s house for dinner,” Albrecht says. “In fact, Captain Turner is the first Tac I ever had who sat me down and really talked to me about the Army, about what to expect, about the connections between what we’re doing now and what we’ll find out there.”

  They drive along the highway that splits the big reservation. This is the same road that points to Lake Frederick, where classes of new cadets have ended Beast Barracks for fifty years. The road is lined on either side with signs, shaped like shields, bearing the names of the various ranges and training areas. They are named for American battles: Buena Vista from the Mexican War, Normandy Range. After a few false turns, they catch up with F-2’s team at the rifle range.

  The nine cadets on the team—Bradley is one of them—are camouflaged and outfitted in a field uniform: BDUs, helmet, rifle, protective mask, climbing rope, gloves, canteens, ammunition, and first-aid pouches. The squad carries one radio, with the cadets taking turns carrying it. One rucksack contains a climbing rope. The F-2 team passes their initial inspection; they will be inspected again at the end to ensure that they finish with the same prescribed load of equipment.

  The team is fresh, well conditioned, and nervous. This crew includes four firsties, which may explain why they make decisions as a group, like something out of a business school study of how teams should work. The firsties have all been in this competition before. The cadets of the lower classes defer to those with more experience (as opposed to those with more seniority); but no one, not even the lone plebe on the team, is excluded from the decision-making process.

  (Interestingly, this style of team leadership is used by the service’s most elite units. Members of the Army’s counter-terrorist unit, the Delta Force, are task-organized for missions; the most experienced, best-qualified man is in charge, regardless of rank.)

  After inspection, the team draws ammunition for the first test: rifle marksmanship. When the clock starts, they run a quarter mile to the firing range (they won’t stop running until they reach the finish line several hours later). More than sixty members of the company have turned out on this Saturday morning to cheer on the team. This is the majority of those who are not competing with or supporting Army athletic teams in away games.

  The cadets who turn out to support the team wear a variety of outfits. This is a spirit mission, and the rules are always a little flexible when it comes to spirit missions. There are F-2 T-shirts with a cartoon gladiator, F-2 intramural uniforms, with the company designation. Other cadets wear combinations of camouflage trousers and “spirit” T-shirts; still others are in PT gear.

  On the range, the rifles begin to crack. The targets, shaped like the head-and-shoulders silhouette of a man, pop up and get knocked down. After a few well-organized minutes they come off the range, have their weapons checked, and take off running.

  The crowd follows the team along the trails that top the ridge-lines. The lead cadet in the cheering section carries a black four-by-six-foot flag with “F-2” in big gold letters. There are a half dozen cadets on mountain bikes, a few taking photographs. It is a beautiful spring morning, all sunlight and fresh air, team identity, and athleticism. The men and women would rather be back
in bed, but sleeping in is not an option, so they cheer their company-mates.

  Nick Albrecht credits Ron Havener with the team identity on display; Havener was F-2’s cadet company commander first semester.

  “Ron did a lot to pull the company together. He listened to people. He paid attention to the under classes. He tried to make things fun.”

  The squad moves at a fast trot—helmets, rucksacks, and weapons jangling—up a stony, eroded trail to a clearing where they stop and put on the thick protective masks. The black-rubber-and-plastic headgear makes breathing and seeing difficult. The cadets will run nearly a mile in the claustrophobic masks, sucking air through filters designed to keep out chemical agents. By the time they reach the next site, they are seriously winded and sweating heavily.

  The spectators, running without masks, reach the next site first. They stand behind a white tape barrier as their team lines up behind machine guns set on tarpaulins. This station is timed disassembly and assembly of the weapons. Calm reigns, and when one of the contestants is penalized for a tiny infraction, the others merely lay on the encouragement.

  More running. The company commander, Murphy Caine, has been carrying the big flag up and down the mountain trails. He has painted a black “F” on one cheek and a “2” on the other. In his enthusiasm this morning, he painted the letter and number while looking in the mirror, so that when he went outside the company had a good laugh: the letter and number were backwards.

  Several miles into the competition, the cadets approach a stream and go into a practiced drill. They drop the rucksack containing the climbing ropes and begin constructing a one-rope bridge. One cadet wades through the stream and knots the nylon line to a pole on the far bank. The others thread their end through a series of knots, creating a come-along; they pull it tight, heaving together like sailors. The cadets have all fashioned “Swiss seats,” the tight girdle of line to which they attach a mountain climber’s ‘D’-ring.

  A second class cadet does a pull-up on the line, which is some five or six feet up, hooks the ring, and spins until he hangs parallel to the ground. With quick hand movements he pulls himself across to the other side, hooks a leg over the line, and unsnaps the ring. The others follow; the metal snap links make a buzzing sound as they fly across the braided nylon rope.

  The bridge site is where the families of some cadets have gathered to watch. Kevin Bradley’s parents, Dave and Madge, and his younger sister Cori, have driven the two and a half hours from their home in southern New Jersey to be here. They chat amiably with the cadets, many of whom they know from four years’ worth of trips to West Point.

  Bradley grew up playing football and baseball at his suburban high school; his parents cheered for him in countless games. If it strikes them as odd that they are now cheering their son and his teammates in a competition of soldiers skills that includes shooting, it doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm.

  Cadets in the crowd along the stream bank chant “Zoo, zoo!” (for the “F-2 Zoo”) as the team races over the shallow water. Once across, the contestants pull apart the bridge, stuff the rope into a rucksack, and head off in a file along a narrow trail. Thick briars tear at clothing, tug equipment, scratch exposed skin. They push through the undergrowth to a flooded storm drain that runs beneath the nearby state highway: four lanes and a median. A cadet says that the Commandant, Brigadier General John Abizaid, crawled through with the team just ahead of F-2.

  The Zoo team plunges into the muddy water and, one by one, squeezes into the concrete pipe. A half dozen cadets from the cheering section, led by the company commander, follow, hollering gleefully as they emerge on the far side.

  There is another long run, this one in wet boots and uniforms. It is difficult now to tell the cadets apart, even the men from the woman. They are all soaked, muddy, sweating; the camouflage paint runs in green rivulets down their faces.

  Up another ridge on a paved road beside a small nineteenth-century cemetery, then along a dirt track that leads uphill (again) for another half mile. The cheering section is in full stride now, the numbers seem to be growing. It’s a smalltown parade, a gaggle of fired-up college kids in running shoes and on mountain bikes. They exchange gossip and talk about possible scores and who went through the culvert and how many points the company has.

  Near the top of the ski slope the team enters a clearing. The crowd following, all good soldiers, falls behind the white tape marking the spectator area. In the middle of the clearing is a fourteen-foot-high wall made of wide planks painted black. The front of the wall is decorated with a gold Ranger tab that stretches seven or eight feet across. There is no platform on top, just another plank set on its side on the telephone-pole frame. There is a sawdust pit at the bottom on both sides. The task is simple enough: The team must get over the wall with all their equipment and weapons.

  The Zoo team has practiced this particular event several times a week for the past two months; and it looks it. Two cadets back up to the wall, squat down, boost the leaders to the top. Even for the tallest cadets, it is still a stretch. The cadets scaling the wall must pull themselves from a dead-arm hang to the top of the narrow planking, then get a leg up, then go over without simply falling. When a few are on the far side, two men pause at the top to hand over the team’s weapons, the rucksack with the heavy radio, the bridge equipment. The crowd shouts encouragement and advice.

  Kevin Bradley is the next-to-last man to scale the obstacle. His teammate crouches, back against the wall, and Bradley steps in his hands. The yearling pulls with both arms and launches Bradley upward; two cadets straddling the narrow top of the wall grab his hands, pull him up. But Bradley doesn’t go over. He sits on the wall, his back to the last man, hooks his knees on the edge, then leans over backwards, dangling as if from a trapeze. His helmet and equipment all head for the ground; the straps and hooks and belts hit him in the face. One of the cadets straddling the top of the wall pins Bradley’s legs to the top plank. Bradley is upside down, his head a good seven or eight feet off the ground, arms extended. The last cadet on the near side backs up and runs full speed at the wall, leaping at the last second, clawing, grabbing Bradley’s belt, his harness. Using Bradley as a human ladder, he scrambles up, stepping on Bradley’s armpits. His flailing boots smack Bradley in the face. Then he is up and over, as quickly as if he had climbed stairs. Bradley and the last man leap to the ground, and the whole team is across in just over a minute.

  The crowd goes wild. It is the fastest time the Zoo has delivered all spring, but there is no stopping, and the team takes off at a run, the crowd still cheering.

  They run on a ridgeline trail to the mountaineering site, where the Zoo team rappels down a steep rock face above the tennis center. The following crowd clambers down the hill, using a climbing rope as a handhold. They race to get ahead and be in place for the finish.

  Breaking out of the brush along the road by the Cadet Chapel, members of the team check to make sure they have everyone. Sweaty, blowing hard, they scamper down the steps by the gym and run out onto Jefferson Road, which passes the Supe’s house. As they turn the corner, they come up behind two wide-bodied humvees. In previous years, the final task was to push a jeep around the block on which Quarters 100 sits; the humvee weighs more than twice what the old jeep weighed.

  The team starts off fast, pushing the big green vehicle toward MacArthur’s statue. Around the corner, sandbags are laid end-to-end across the road. The eight cadets (one is inside steering) strain to get the vehicle over the bags. In front of Arvin Gym, they maneuver the humvee around some traffic barriers. By the time they come around the block, they are near the end of their strength. Stumbling, mute, they grab their equipment, do one last check to ensure that they are all together and have everything (leaving a piece of equipment behind incurs a penalty; leaving a teammate behind means disqualification). Then, incredibly, they sprint across the finish line.

  The street is lined with spectators; the Zoo cheering section is hoarse, but manages a
last roar. Once the team crosses the line, another judge checks their equipment for completeness, and they are finished.

  It is 10:30 on Saturday morning.

  The Zoo team goes off to shower, to tend their wounds, to scrub the camouflage paint off their faces and arms. The Bradley family heads to the grassy field where the rugby team practices. They’ve brought along a picnic for the entire Sandhurst team.

  The Bradleys are in their forties, both schoolteachers, with an easygoing demeanor that makes it easy to picture them in a classroom. They are the kind of adults teenagers would talk to. Madge Bradley, whom Kevin resembles most strongly, has dark, almost black hair. Warm and friendly, she smiles a lot and speaks with a strong New Jersey accent, like someone from a Bruce Springsteen song.

  “When he first came here I was worried that we’d lose Kevin,” she admits. “But in fact what happened was that my family didn’t get smaller, it got bigger.”

  Madge comes from a large family, and so is used to having a crowd around. Because the Bradleys live so close to Philadelphia and the site of the Army-Navy football game, their home has been a gathering place before and after the game for Kevin and his friends.

  “She loves it,” Dave Bradley says, smiling behind his sunglasses.

  “We have kids sleeping on the floor, on the couches, in all the rooms,” Madge adds. “My brothers come along and I tell them to bring lots of food … those kids can eat.”

  The Bradleys’ van is parked at the edge of Clinton Field, close to the center of the cadet area. A hundred yards away, tourists snake through the rows of cannons on Trophy Point and pose for pictures with the Hudson as a backdrop. Dave Bradley unfolds a large table. Cori covers it with a tablecloth and the family goes into a little drill, as practiced as the one-rope bridge exercise. Two big coolers, one full of soft drinks and the other full of long sandwiches (“hoagies,” in New Jersey); brownies and chips and napkins and pickles. They’ve been doing this for four years, and now they can hardly believe it’s about to end.