I woke up to an air horn just outside my bedroom blaring relentlessly. I wiped the eye boogies from the crevices of my eyes and then abruptly cuffed my ears. I thought to myself, damnit, why did I sign up for this camp…It is summer vacation, and I’m being woken up at 4:33 am to go do PT and get yelled at.
I looked across the room to my squad mate; we both shook our heads and simultaneously said, “What the hell.” I could tell by his face what he was expecting, and he could see very well on mine, that I was in full blown fear. It was day #2 at West Point’s leadership seminar. We were getting woken up for “Plebe Day,” or in other words, “get treated like s*** day.” I am a kid with pretty thick skin, but this, this was far beyond a few harsh words from my dad or bros. This was a verbal assault, coming from guys who were three times my size, built like a brick s*** house, and women who could bench press my own weight and then some…
As I got my clothes on, preparing to go work my ass off, I tried my hardest to ignore the pungent smells that permeated my nose. We had our clothes from yesterday’s sweaty workout session piled in the corner of our room. I guess it’s a boy thing to not take care of your own clothes, but I was really wishing I had now. I did the sensible thing and gave my best effort to cover it up with a healthy dose of body spray. Hastily, I held my socks, shorts, and shirt in on firm pinch and extended my arm out as far as it would go. Then, I let loose and practically gas bombed our room, but I don’t think any amount of odor cover could have mask the ratchet stank. Still, as I struggled to shove my legs through the holes of my shorts in the commotion, the cadets were crashing pots and pans together just outside our room. I could hardly hear my own thoughts as I said them in my head. All of this was designed to create chaos; make us incredibly disordered, frightened, and broken. I’ll be the first to admit it; the plan was working to perfection. I finally got my PT clothes on and made my way to the hallway. As soon as I got out, I was told I was lucky. Not exactly my idea of lucky, but “lucky” because I had my own personal trainer, an incredibly jacked cadet, who was ordering me to do push-ups and wall sits so I could, “get big like him.” I dropped down on my chest and began pumping them out. I gave him whatever he wanted, just to stop the yelling. I did push-ups until I had nothing left in my tank. Then, the cadet found a way through means of intimidation to flip the switch on my tank to reserve, to get me to do more. I just kept doing them, losing track of the number I was on. I was distracted by the beads of sweat that fell from my brow, trickled down my face, and onto my lips. I didn’t have an option but to lick it off. The salty nastiness did nothing but make me more uncomfortable.
I was beyond confused. Yesterday, these people were being incredibly friendly and welcoming, but now, they were terrifying behemoths, completely different in everything they did. I didn’t know what to think. I had to do something bad in order to get treated this way, right? Well I was wrong. These men and women proved it to me. I had been nothing but kind and respectful to them, and yet they gabbed and shouted at me as if I was worth less than the mud stuck to the bottom of their combat boots.
Finally, everyone was in the hallway. We were herded together like the cattle they valued us as. They used their stern voices to prod us on down the stairs and to the formation square. When I stumbled through the doors and to the square, I could just see the presence of fear in everything out there. Even the cold grey stone, with no imperfections, was radiating fear. The girl’s barrack didn’t have it any easier than us guys. I even saw one of those tough looking man-girls break down in the distance, just balling her eyes out. It was still hours before sun rise, so there was a giant make –shift sun, a mega lamp, blinding us cattle from doing anything but what we were told. The chain of command said that cattle only follow the one in front of them, so that’s what we did, not caring about what was behind us, timidly trusting each other to go the right way, and do the right things. All I was looking for was the back of the head of the person in front of me. I thought at that very moment, that I was an animal. I had no feelings; I was just following directives because I didn’t want the wrath of the farmer. He was always nearby, walking with his pitch fork of power in one hand and wagging his finger with the other, crushing bugs beneath his rugged steel toed boots as he went. The cadets watched over us like hawks as we marched out of the big red barn, past the rusty orange fences, and to the tiny black building; the same black building that I’ve never seen any farm animals return from. I had a bad feeling about it; I knew what was coming… a cow’s worst fear… the slaughter house.