Duty First

by Ed Ruggero

  “That’s a kid’s answer. I ask them if they think they can pull that kind of stuff in the Army.”

  There are six or seven cadets—firsties—in the wrong uniform, dark gray shirts and overseas caps. They stand out in the formation of white hats and white shirts. Albrecht holds a deflated football.

  “It’s kind of an award,” he says. He explains that it’s a tradition in F-2, for the first class to give the football to the second class cadet who can hold his drink better than anyone else. Albrecht holds up the partially inflated ball and shows off the names and dates, which go back to the nineteen sixties.

  He leaves the story unfinished.

  “Go ahead,” Turner prompts. Albrecht doesn’t respond.

  “I wouldn’t let them have a drinking party,” Turner says.

  Around them, the thousand cadets of the regiment are formed in a giant horseshoe. In each company, bleary-eyed firsties promote the second class, then move down the ranks to the third and finally, the fourth class.

  Albrecht and Turner pointedly ignore each other.

  Turner knows that command-sanctioned drinking parties are an anathema in the Army; one DUI conviction will end a career. Not to mention the fact that soldiers expect officers—even twenty-two-year-old lieutenants—to comport themselves like adults, not like fraternity boys. But the cadets know that Turner doesn’t drink alcohol; they figure that his decision is personal.

  “The cadets told me I was one of the toughest Tacs in the corps,” Turner says. “Which is just a polite way of calling me an asshole. They thought I was too much in their stuff, that I was getting too involved.”

  Arms folded, he looks out over the formation. There is no joking around at this hour.

  “Maybe. Sometimes that’s part of being in charge. You know, when I was a cadet it used to be: ‘Do this because I said so.’ I tried to stop that. I tell them why they’re doing something so they’ll understand when they get to the army. Some get it, some don’t. But they can’t say they never heard it.”

  Turner is disappointed that only one firstie, Kevin Bradley, took him up on an offer to “come by the office to talk about the army.” This especially troubles him because one of his chief complaints about his own superiors is that they do not make themselves available to mentor younger officers.

  Turner’s overall level of frustration also reflects a sense of alienation from his peers. Brigadier General Ron Johnson, Turner’s former math instructor and something of a mentor for the younger officer, said Brian felt left out when other Tacs went to play golf or go fishing, two things Turner doesn’t do. Johnson told him to take a day off and learn.

  “Tacs aren’t given enough latitude, enough decision-making authority,” Turner says. “There’s too much due process. Tacs are almost afraid to give a low military development grade. It’s not a matter of, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ Instead, it becomes. ‘I don’t want to embarrass my boss.’ ”

  Turner and the other Tacs are required to defend the grades they give cadets, and the Brigade Tactical Officer, Colonel Adamczyk, asks tough questions about low scores. Turner knows this because he just recommended a failing military development grade—and dismissal from West Point—for a second class cadet.

  “He was on the overweight program, he hadn’t passed his Indoor Obstacle Course or the APFT [Army Physical Fitness Test].”

  By second class year, the government has invested a great deal of money in each cadet; they are not dismissed without a lot of scrutiny. Was everything done to help the cadet meet the standard? Did the cadet understand the seriousness of his situation? Turner didn’t see the scrutiny as part of a check, a nod to due process. He takes it as an indictment of his judgment.

  He mentions his own upcoming fitness report, his report card for the entire year. Officers are evaluated on their performance; they are also compared to their peers in the same job. Since Tacs are carefully chosen from among the most successful officers in the army, Turner is competing in a fast group.

  “I’m pretty down about it,” he says, “because I don’t really know where I stand. I guess all I can say is that I’ve given 100 percent every day since I became an officer. Guess that means nothing. I get tired of going through this.”

  By graduation week, Turner has decided to make a change. He told the Army that he wants to leave his primary specialty as an armor officer and work in the Acquisition Corps, which negotiates contracts to supply the Army’s vast needs.

  “I know I have what it takes to be [an armor] battalion commander,” he says. “I’m not sure I’d ever get the chance, though, and I don’t want to wait around all those years to find out.”

  Yet he doesn’t know much about the Acquisition Corps, and confesses that he signed up for it because it sounded like something he could use later in life.

  “I can still change my mind about it,” he says, twice.

  The pressures of being a single officer on an isolated post, of being a minority, of competing in a field with some of the best officers of his rank, are piling up on him. He needs a chance to unwind, to get away from West Point and get some perspective; there is an opportunity in the three weeks before he begins work as a Beast Tac. He plans to take a long weekend.

  The fog is lifting off the field. Turner stands aside as the cadets march past, then up the front steps of Washington Hall and through the big Mess Hall doors for another twenty-minute meal.

  For four years the class of 1999 has been counting the days until graduation. It has always been far in the future. Finally, shockingly, unbelievably, it is here.

  The steep road leading to Michie Stadium is filled with underclass cadets in white over gray. The platoons tramp behind company guidons and sing marching songs.

  Used to date a beauty queen

  Now I got my M16

  Just below the south end of the stadium, in the shade of some trees by the beautiful alumni center, a white tent fly is set up for the families of F-2’s graduating cadets. Later in the day there will be a pinning ceremony; the new lieutenants, changed into the dress uniforms of officers, will have their gold bars pinned on by family members.

  On the football field, the combined choirs and glee club sit on low bleachers beside the USMA band. The VIPs onstage include a US Senator and several members of Congress; the Secretary of the Army Luis Caldera, USMA ‘78; and General Dennis Reimer, ‘62, the soon-to-retire Chief of Staff of the Army. Many of the families clustered in the stands learned from their experience during yesterday’s sundrenched parade: there are a few parasols in view.

  The stage is set up in the eastern end zone, and long metal benches for the graduating cadets face the dais. Behind the seniors sit the tactical officers and NCOs. With the exception of the honor graduates, who occupy in the first row, the cadets are arranged by company. Beside the ramps leading off the stage are four members of the Class of 1949, which has unofficially adopted the Class of 1999. Three retired generals and a colonel (the class’s most-decorated combat veteran) will hand each graduate a small box containing the gold bars of a second lieutenant, inscribed on the back “USMA ’49–’99.”

  On a bench in the press section sits a First Sergeant who wears the shoulder patch of the Second Infantry Division. The former Tac NCO is on leave from his assignment in Korea and has come up here to see “his” cadets graduate. In front of him, the Tacs sweat in their heavy uniforms; they tap their black shoes as the band plays.

  Captain Gillian Boice, Jacque Messel’s Tac, is looking for some tissues, just in case she cries.

  “I tell my cadets that I’m strong, but I’m passionate.”

  Everything happens quickly now. The class marches in to applause from the stands. Their sabers clatter as they settle, tightly packed on the metal benches. When they sit, they remove their white hats. The Superintendent goes to the microphone; he invites the cadets to stand and applaud their families, to thank them for all their support. The cadets do so enthusiastically.

  Christman then ment
ions that he was a plebe at General Reimer’s graduation in 1962. One memory of that day stands out clearly, he says, almost forty years later. He pauses for comic timing. “I was thinking, ‘Plebe year is over and I’m going home on leave.’ ”

  The graduates laugh politely.

  Christman also remembers the speaker. President John F. Kennedy promised the cadets that the world was changing and the future would hold many challenges for them.

  “Kennedy was right,” Christman says. “And the same holds true for you.”

  It is the kind of pronouncement they’ve been hearing for four years: standard graduation-speech maxims. With all these families present, it would be impolite for Christman to point out that many of the cadets present that day in 1962 would die in Vietnam within a few years of their commander-in-chiefs speech.

  General Dennis Reimer is the keynote speaker. This will be his last official function at West Point; he retires in two weeks, after thirty-seven years in uniform. Reimer starts off with a funny story about soldiers, then his talk drags on into a loose collection of quotations from other people’s speeches. The audience drifts, and the families in the stands fidget. He is, mercifully, brief.

  The combined choirs stand to sing “The Corps.” The cadets and graduates, who memorized the song as part of plebe-year knowledge, join in, singing about the Long Gray Line.

  The Corps, bareheaded salute it

  With eyes up thanking our God

  That we of the Corps are treading

  Where they of the Corps have trod

  The Dean of the Academic Board, Brigadier General Fletcher Lamkin, takes the microphone. “These graduating cadets have been awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science,” he says.

  The first two rows of cadets stand; these are the honor graduates. Walt Cooper, the number-one man in order of merit, is ranked first in his class. He will attend the U.S. Army Ranger School—an intense small-unit tactics course—over the summer. In the fall he will move to England, where he will study as a Rhodes Scholar.

  Kevin Bradley, who is number twenty in order of merit, receives his diploma from General Reimer, shakes hands with Secretary Caldera, then comes off the stage smiling. After the honor graduates, the newly elected class president and the first captain receive their diplomas.

  Then two readers and two presenters line up at the head of the twin ramps; they read the names more rapidly. Officials have taken great care to get the correct pronunciation of every cadet’s name; each white tube has the typed name and the phonetic spelling. The litany of names is punctuated with wild cheering as families in the stands acknowledge their cadets. Some of the cadets are overwhelmed as they come off the stage. They dance, clasp friends in tight embraces. Many of them are on the verge of tears, and quite a few fall to their knees to pray.

  As the graduates of E-2 come off the stage, Major Rob Olson and Sergeant First Class Mercier position themselves alongside the ramp. Olson, brimming with emotion, hugs each of his charges.

  Suddenly the class breaks into wild cheering for the class “goat,” the cadet ranked dead-last in order of merit. She receives her diploma with one hand; in the other she holds a brown paper bag containing a dollar bill from each of 937 classmates. It is, tradition holds, her reward for keeping the bottom of the class from falling out.

  After the presentation of diplomas, the Corps of Cadets is invited to sing the Alma Mater. The seniors, the underclass cadets, and old grads in the stands sing along. The song is unabashedly emotional, a holdover from a romantic era; but for these few minutes, at least, all cynicism seems banished, and every man and woman is a believer in duty, honor, country.

  Hail Alma Mater dear,

  To us be ever near

  Help us thy motto bear, through all the years

  Let duty be well performed

  Honor be e’er untarnd

  Country be ever armed

  West Point, by thee

  The tune is soft and slow, almost a lullaby.

  Guide us they sons, aright

  Teach us by day, by night

  To keep thine honor bright

  For thee to fight

  When we depart from thee

  Serving on land or sea

  May we still loyal be

  West Point to thee

  And when our work is done

  Our course on earth is run

  May it be said, “Well done!”

  Be thou at peace

  The music swells at the end; even the least musically inclined are singing now.

  E’er may that line of gray

  Increase from day to day

  Live, serve and die we pray,

  West Point for thee

  After the alma mater, the popular Commandant, Brigadier General John Abizaid, walks to the microphone to administer the oath of office. The 937 men and women, their heads uncovered, raise their right hands.

  I … having been appointed an officer in the United States Army in the grade of second lieutenant, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God.

  Inside two or three minutes they have ended one journey—symbolized by the diplomas inside the white tubes—and have embarked on another with a solemn oath.

  Up in the bleachers, the rest of the corps stands to watch the closing moments of the ceremony. It moves each of them a little closer to their own day. In the end zone behind the graduates, hundreds of children mill around behind the linked hands of cadet ushers. On the field, photographers position themselves to capture the moment that has come to symbolize graduation here: the hat toss. When the class is dismissed, the new lieutenants throw their white hats into the air (they no longer need the cadet cap). Children are allowed on the field to retrieve a souvenir hat. Cadets will sometimes put photographs, notes, even money inside the caps. And because this is a place of rules, there is a paragraph inside today’s program that spells out the procedure: Children must be between six and twelve years old, and “for the safety of the youngsters,” between thirty-six and fifty-four inches tall.

  “In order to provide maximum opportunity for all, children will be strictly limited to one hat. … If you are unable to locate your child,” the brochure goes on without giving any hint of the melee that will ensue, “the Military Police will assist you in locating them at Gate 3.”

  In photographs of graduation, the hats are always shown at the top of the arc. But that is just an illusion.

  There is no stasis, of course. Tempus fugit and all that. Even as the first captain is being called forward to dismiss the class, hundreds of the younger cadets are thinking about their next duty, about their flight overseas, about summer school classes, about leave and Camp Buckner. Down in the cadet area, government-issue equipment is put away to make room for the shipments of new shoes and boots and blankets and uniforms for the Class of 2003. The Tacs ponder who among the class of 2000 is ready to handle the responsibilities the summer will bring. West Point is about forward motion and jampacked days; these are men and women of action, above all else. There is no hesitation, almost no time for reflection.

  Robert Shaw, former first captain and now a second lieutenant of infantry, comes forward and centers himself before the speaker’s platform. He gives the command for his classmates to “Re … cover,” at which they all put their white hats on for the last time.

  General Christman tells Shaw to take charge and dismiss the class.

  Shaw turns and bellows, “Class of 1999, dis-missed!”

  Instantly the caps sail into the bright blue. And perhaps the cycle does hold still, if only for an instant, if only for as long as it takes the white hats to climb, pause at the top of the arc, tumble over in the sunlight, and fall back to eart
h.

  EPILOGUE: SUMMER 2000

  Rob and Holly Olson got their joint assignment to Fort Leavenworth, then Holly spent the last months of their tour attending a career course for medical officers at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. She commuted to Kansas most weekends. The Olsons put up with this relatively minor inconvenience so that they could move together to their next assignment in Hawaii, where Rob was to join the 25th Infantry Division for a second tour. Within weeks of arriving, Olson and his new unit deployed back to the mainland for a month of combat training.

  Brian Turner became more disillusioned with his chain of command during his second year as a Tac, 1999–2000. “I never thought I’d say I hate coming to work in the morning. Working with these kids is great, but I don’t respect the senior officers I work for.” Turner applied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, because he still wants to serve his country. As of summer, 2000, he is waiting for the FBI to lift a hiring freeze.

  Within a year after graduation, Kevin Bradley was on patrol out of Camp Monteith, Kosovo. “We set up checkpoints, search cars, provide escorts, and things of that nature,” he says. “The most surprising thing to me and the thing I was not prepared for was the magnitude of the responsibility the PLs [platoon leaders, a lieutenant’s job] have. Each is assigned a certain number of towns. … They have to meet with the mayors and the town councils to listen to their problems (especially difficult in towns with both Serbs and Albanians) and keep the peace. It is a pretty brutal schedule … twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  When it came time to choose his branch, Grady Jett picked the Field Artillery, which has been popular among football players in recent years. He also selected, for his first assignment, Fort Hood, in his home state of Texas. Jett plans on leaving the Army after his five-year commitment is up, although he says he is going in with an open mind. “I may stay in if I’m enjoying the unit and the people. If I’m not enjoying it, there’s no reason to stay in.”