Rangers Lead the Way

Since last I came here, my schedule and Corps life in general have changed quite a bit. I'm trying out for Rudder's Rangers, a special unit within the Corps and sponsored by the Army that exists for the purposes of training people for infantry combat. That's all well and good, but why did I, an Air Force ROTC member who doesn't intend to commission into the military, join an infantry training group? Just for kicks.

But seriously, I've been kinda bored with the Air Force recently. Also, being in my Sophomore year, things that used to be hard just aren't anymore. Normal outfit PT is something I can do without trying, and, honestly, the new Air Force labs are a joke as far as any kind of training goes. The last three that I have attended were, respectively, marching practice (really, after I've been in the Corps for a year?), Leadership Development Courses (which I think I've been picking up better just in the Corps life), and a PT test which got cancelled because it had rained earlier in the day. Instead, we just did more marching practice and an even less organized version of the last week's events. I probably wouldn't sound as annoyed, but due to the new structure of the Air Force ROTC, I have to do the same stuff the freshmen are doing, which is exactly what I did last year. Even a large portion of my Air Force buddies are complaining.

The real reason I joined Rudder's is to get more of a challenge in my life, since the fish year stuff is gone. The challenge of Rudder's comes not only from the PT (every morning at 5:15), but also from the labs, where they teach stuff like light infantry tactics, land navigations, and other Army stuff. Additionally, there are Field Training Exercises, or FTX's, where we'll take an entire weekend and practice what we learn in the lab.

There's a bit of tradition behind Rudder's as well, just like most good Corps organizations. Rudder's is named after the 2nd Ranger Battalion, who on D-Day were not just hitting the beaches with everyone else, but instead were scaling the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc, to destroy a battery of artillery that could have made life miserable. The Commanding Officer of the Battalion at that time Was James Earl Rudder, best known around A&M for the tower named in his honor, and as the man who integrated the school and the Corps.

"In memory of James Earl Rudder, 1910-1970, class of 1932. Heroic soldier, Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas, sixteenth President of Texas A&M University, third President of the Texas A&M University System. Earl Rudder was architect of the dream that produced this center. In this, as in all he did, he demonstrated uncommon ability to inspire men and lead them to exceptional achievements."

Corps Crud

It is that time of the year again. When 48,000 young men and women from all parts of the world gather together to advance their education... and share their particular diseases. The so-called "Corps Crud", so termed because it tends to affect the most densely packed and strongly interacting group of students on campus (that's right, I mean the Corps) is either particularly easily transmitted this year or is just so powerful that more people are complaining. It's certainly far worse than I remember last year. Additionally, there's at least one confirmed case of H1N1 "swine flu" in the First Wing, so their dorm is quarantined. Personally, I think that, in the Corps, diseases are like cockroaches: where you see one, there's probably ten more. It wouldn't surprise me if that's the particular corps crud this year.

In addition to Dorm 10 (where the First Wing resides) being quarantined, there are rumors of the band dorms (Dorms 9 and 11) being quarantined, as well as ours (Dorm 12). I talked to our health and safety sergeant today (he's taking numbers of those affected) and he said that a third of our outfit is currently sick, not counting those recently sick or those who have not yet complained. And that's why I didn't post over the start of the week. I had the exact same thing everyone else has. Monday about noon I had a scratchy throat. Monday about 3:00 I was so sick that I could barely get myself downstairs to sign out of the various afternoon training events. Tuesday was a total wash, and I either slept or tried to sleep all day. Today I'm feeling better, and I may start going to class and formations again tomorrow.

"Mr. Fury"

Meanwhile, back in College Station...

It's official. I can now truly consider myself a sophomore. I'm back in town, writing from the third floor of Utay Hall (Corps Dorm 12). My fish arrived here last Sunday, and have been going through Fish Orientation Week, or FOW. FOW is where all the fish are "indoctrinated" into the Corps. I think I described it about a year ago from the fish side of the experience, but now I have a totally different perspective. Since I'm not one of the Cadre (training staff) I didn't have to show up until Thursday, but some of my buddies and the outfit leadership have been in town since the middle of last week. They've been teaching the fish stuff like whipping out, how to greet, how to eat, how to dress... the whole nine yards.

There's a lot of old names among the fish this year. One of them is my buddy's little brother, another is one of the juniors' cousins, and one is the little brother of a senior. Several more are know personally and were recruited by us. That's not even mentioning the shared names. We also have one set of twins and two other pairs of shared names. It's just going to be a nightmare to learn all of them.

Now that I'm a sophomore, examining fish fresh out of FOW from a different perspective, I can see how incredibly silly we must have seemed a year ago. We take it for granted that everyone knows how to wear every one of five or six different uniforms, and can take perfect care of them. Not to mention the odd names that come out of their mouths. You see, when you whip out with thirty of your buddies, the noise is deafening, and you go with whatever name you think you might have heard. Thus, my budd Krakoski got called Checkovski, Markovski, and a lot of other names that ended in -ski. I heard several variants of my name, including Pharaoh, Fumble, and Fury. Mr. Fury. I think I kinda like that name.

Summer Life

I know it's been a while, but I don't really have that much going on. The only reason I'm posting is because I feel obligated to pronounce my continued existence. That and I've finally accumulated enough to write a small amount about halfway through the summer.

The main thing I'm doing in College Station is Physics. Electricity and Magnetism isn't that bad so far, but it does happen to be one of the most failed courses at A&M. I also prefer to do well in it, but even with that wish, there's really no Corps activities to speak of, and I'm only taking one class, so I keep finding stuff to do in my spare time. After an extended period of about a week trying to not be bored by playing video games with friends, I've discovered that the library has a respectable collection of Orson Scott Card books. Specifically, I've been reading the Ender's Game series. Unfortunately for me, they don't have all of them, so I'm going to have to find another place to read, but they do have 3/4 of the major storyline, as well as all of the minor storyline and a few unrelated books of the same universe. I've found that I can get through one 200-300 page book in about four or five hours, if I decide to string it out, or 3-4 if I'm in a hurry.

The Ender's Game book mostly deals with the early life of a boy, who, having been trained all of his life for war, kills what is thought to be an entire alien civilization, thinking that the final battle was merely a simulation. The rest of the series deals with the finding of another potentially deadly alien civilization and the various philisophical, familial, moral, and theological problems that it presents. Much of it (especially in the third book) revolves around what kind of alien life it is acceptable to destroy, and how to tell which is which. It's actually a quite entertaining discussion, and not terribly hard to follow most of the time. I expect that these books may become required reading if we ever decide to send a colony to a potentially livable planet. I know for a fact that the reading of the first book, dealing with Ender's development as a leader and strategist is strongly encouraged, if not required, among some of the military institutions in this country.

In addition to reading and physics, I've had the opportunity to help recruit for the Corps. It's mostly been small, behind the scenes jobs, but I've done a bit up front too. There is no possible way to describe how wierd it is to be introduced to someone who will probably be your fish next year. It's something like a combination of "who do you think you are, hot shot?" and "you have no idea what you're getting in to". Some of them have attitudes that can be annoying, until I realize that that's where I was a year ago, thinking almost exactly the same thoughts. I've also been talking to a lot of non-regs, and have found that there really is no way to comprehend what the Corps is without experiencing it.

On that note, I've noticed that the Corps has quite the public relations problem. It doesn't take a genius to notice that Corps enrollment isn't increasing the way the university is. It's not so much that everyone hates us, it's just that no one really understands us. Even when the Air Force paid to have a Chief Master Sergeant (an E-9, the highest pay grade for an enlisted person) from the Air Force Academy talk to us about leadership, it was clear he had no idea what makes us tick. And this guy's been lecturing to people like us for decades. I'm only beginning to see the start of what holds us all together myself. It's not just an internal thing to my outfit, I can meet pretty much anyone in the Corps and already know, based on my experiences, a certain amount of their prejdudices, priorities, preferences, and some of what they've gone through. Very few non-regs see past the march-ins every home game, the constant PT we're doing, the constant yelling on the Quad to see the things that make the Corps what it is. It's not so much the march-in, it's the pride in the Corps and the whole-hearted support for the university. It's not so much the PT, it's the learning from the mistakes, the bonding with your buddies, the unity within the outfit. It's not so much the yelling, it's the whip-out, the introduction between a fish and those who will train him, and the respect that must exist without which there could be no leadership.

On a lighter note, I'm having quite a bit of fun here. Between the physics, recruiting, and the library, it's hard to stay bored, despite the relative nonexistence of summer life in Aggieland. It really is amazing to walk around on a Saturday afternoon and see no one for ten minutes at a time. Additionally, with the reduced workload, I'm available to respond to comments and emails if you wish to send them, at least until fall comes around.

End of fish Year

As you may have noticed, final review was about three weeks ago. Yes, I've been slow coming to this, but it's mostly due to laziness this time. Today I'm going to tell you about some of the things that happened during the last two weeks of the semester. The emphasis is on some, since there's no way that I could tell everything. There was just too much going on.

(By the way, Peter, SPOILER ALERT. It's really in your best interest not to read much of the following. Just skip down to final review and enjoy fish year.)

A note about what follows: it's not nearly as funny unless you know that hazing is a felony.

Two weeks before final review was sophomore drop. Sophomore drop is one of those things that every fish looks forward to with a large amount of excitement and more that a small amount of dread. We'd had smokings for every drop until that point, and some of the stories of what other outfits had put their fish through for sophomore drop do not bear repeating. Since it's the last time fish have to act as fish (except final review, which doesn't count) some people take the opportunity to do some really crazy stuff.

So, Friday training comes around. The entire week the sophomores had been telling us to hydrate for March to the Brazos (abbreviated MTTB, an 18 mile hike) and had been hinting that crazy stuff would happen Friday evening. When 4:30 comes around (training time) we all go into the fallout hole as is normal and then fall out onto the wall. The odd thing was that there was no one except us and the sophomores present. Apparently it's at least a good idea and it may be required (I'm not sure) for some juniors and seniors to be present at training times. Then the shocker comes. The sophomores tell us to pack C's and T's (the uniform we would wear the next morning for ) in a bag along with whatever we would need for the night. Then they sent us on a wild goose chase (driving, not walking) to places such as Rosa's , Laynes, Cold Stone, and the Chicken (where the bartender had us eat small bowls full of jalapenos and drink the same bowl full of tabasco sauce). We eventually ended up at a deserted park with plenty of back-woods trails; the perfect spot to get away with anything without being seen. The sophomores were already waiting for us. Then the police showed up. Not one, not two, not even three, but four police cars showed up. And there were our sophomores, standing around wearing shirts that said things like PRO HAZING: it's not peer pressure, it's just your turn and looking guilty. A couple of them even had axe handles, the traditional symbol of hazing at A&M. I've never seen them look so scared in my life.

Anyways, we just got on to the drop. We whipped out and had a barbecue dinner (the sophomore class has some good burger cooks) and for the first time could talk to sophomores using their first names. It wasn't nearly as awkward as I thought it would be. We also stopped being fish on that day. No more locking it up on the walls, no more "sir sandwiches", no more yelling our heads off on the quad. The sophomores, after a bit of questioning, told us what was supposed to happen before the police showed up. They were going to pretend to haze us. They had collected laundry bags from us earlier that they would put over our heads, lead us around the woods for a bit, they would pretend to be about to beat us. That's when we would drop.

MTTB wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Traditionally, MTTB is where everyone gets their rank for the next year (accompanied by a lot of PT after half of an 18 mile hike). So our fish class got Private First Class brass, the sophomores got non-commisioned officer brass (Sergeants and variants therof), and the juniors got office brass. The seniors then left on the buses that took them back to campus (or to the Chicken, I've heard) and we hiked all the way back.

SPOILERS END (Continue reading from here, Peter)

Dead week and finals week were a lot more fun this year. Not only could we finally talk to people normally, but there were several trips throughout the weeks. I went to a professional soccer game in Houston the Saturday before finals week, then returned the next Tuesday for a Nightwish concert, and the next day went to New Braunfels to go tubing.

Final review really wasn't as fun as it sounds. I know, the last time you have to march for a year and the first time wearing a new uniform are occasions to be glad about, but the way it was planned just messed with our lives. For one thing, Cadets are required to be out of the dorms the same day. That lead to the situation of the entire Corps trying to move out between second pass of final review and midnight. The timing of final review was exceptionally poorly planned. It occured between 5:00 and 8:00 in the evening, so there really was not much time to leave. Additionally, everyone was starving because that took up the time where most people would have dinner. By the time we left, very few places were still open to eat, and we only got home at 1:30 the next morning. We'll call that bad planning by Corps leadership and leave it at that.

The Last Days

As you may have noticed from my recent posts, things are getting a lot more relaxed around here. On Wednesday we dropped with our Juniors. What was supposed to happen was we were going to "air them out" a Corps term for a surprise wakeup call, usually applied to fish. What really happened was we started yelling and busting open doors, only to realize there was no one there. The Juniors promptly came upstairs from one of the third deck rooms and started smoking us. It's apparently a Falcon tradition. After a couple of hours of PT, we dropped with our Juniors, and can now call them by their first names.

Another thing that happened was that the Sophomores earned their white belts. That means that they can now legitimately laugh and make jokes in front of us. It's actually pretty annoying, because one sophomore in particular likes to just stand in front of me and grin. It's impossible to not crack up when that happens. Just yesterday they were in front of the dorm playing golf with fruit. Some of them are actually pretty good at it.

On Friday, for training, we had "fish interviews". Basically, we were informed that this would be an important part of our Corps career, and that we should take them seriously. Uniform was Midnights with service cover and white gloves (the best possible uniform for those not in the band). We were told that everything had to be perfect, so many people spent all day working on uniforms, and most of us went to the length of getting our shoes re-tapped to make them completely perfect. Then we get to the interview, and one by one, every five minutes, a person was called out to go downstairs and be interviewed. When it was my turn, I arrived downstairs and was greeted by most of the upperclassmen, grinning, yelling, and asking questions such as "who is the best-looking senior, fish, junior, and sophomore". At the end, they asked me who I wanted to chew out. Upon my answer, that person stood up and I got to chew him out. You have no idea what awkward is until you get to chew out an upperclassman. It's just plain wierd.

Many things are being passed down in the Corps these days, one of which is the Aggie mascot. I have a class with the new Mascot Corporal, so I se Revielle a lot these days. She gets into class and promptly falls asleep. Apparently the things required to become Mascot Corporal are some of the toughest sets of PT and character analysis in the Corps. Some of the things I have been told about include some serious paper-writing, interviews, and a lot of PT (duh).

By the way, Peter, if you tell any of this to your buddies if and when you're a fish, you're personally smoked. It ruins the experience for both us and you.

WAX PARTY!!!

One of the things that the Corps, and especially squadron 16, prides itself in is professionalism. As a part of that, we cannot "know" our upperclassmens' names or address them except with a 'sir' on each end of the statement. It's a part of the normal training process for fish. Only at the end of fish year do upperclassmen start "dropping" or using first names, with fish. Apparently, we have reached that point in the year.

The event had been semi-revealed to us at the beginning of the week. At outfit meeting on Sunday evening, they told us that we would not be going anywhere Thursday night, even though there were no classes or Corps events on Friday. The last time that happened, we got our Corps Brass. Additionally, they canceled a pizza/movie party we were going to have that evening with Captain Mack, one of the Air Force officers and our military advisor.

After dinner on Thursday night (free flow!) we were led upstairs into our fourth floor hallway. The first indication that I had that something was different about the hallway was the sophomores telling us not to run when we went inside. When we reached the top, we found our normally good-looking hallway covered in mud. When most people say covered, they mean just a large amount of mud, or mostly covered, or mud everywhere. In our hallway, there was literally a half-inch of mud on the floor. There was also a good portion of mud on the walls, and even some on the ceiling. Our task: to make the hall spotless. Fast forward from 7:00 to 9:45. Once the hall was clean, we were told to change into Corps sweats and polish the hall with our bodies (polish was provided by sophomores with half-gallon jugs). There's just no way to describe how that went without pictures. I might put some up later, provided I can get my hands on the pictures.

After polishing the hall (and being the buffers for the seniors doing buffer races) we went out behind the dorm and dropped with our seniors. If it sounds anticlimactic, it wasn't. It's one of those Corps things that really is hard to explain to anyone not in the Corps, but running around in sprinklers, soaked with floor polish from head to foot (that stuff stings badly when you get it wet) yelling your hometown, major, and name at people is a big deal. It's senior drop.

So, now that we're on a first-name basis with our seniors, we can treat them like friends and upperclassmen, as opposed to just upperclassmen. The difference? No 'sir', no greeting in the hallway, no Corps games with the seniors (and only the seniors for now). We treat everyone else the same as before.


Travis Kennedy and John Busch (Corps candidates) won Junior Yell Leader. Hard work apparently can make history. Go figure.