The Boo (24 page)

“Bubba, if it was General Clark as President, you would have left campus before the rising sun. General Harris is new—sort of a rookie feeling his way around. I recommended all of you for 3/60, but I don’t think you’re going to get anything.” “That’s great news, Colonel,” I exclaimed. “It’s a living, crying shame. You bums broke the rules and come out smelling like a rose garden, when you should be walking the quad with a rifle on your shoulder, wearing blisters on your feet. You got out of this one, but remember, every time you make a move next year, my eyes are going to be on you like stink on manure.” “Yes, Sir.”

Luck and timing played a crucial role in my first encounter with
The Boo.
He told me later that a copy of the magazine had been placed in his hands about eight minutes after distribution. The ninth minute found my name written on a pad by his desk as a prime suspect for investigation. So the poem, conceived as a secret gesture of defiance, taught me an invaluable lesson I was never to forget, a lesson which saved me from certain expulsion the following year when
Boo
tracked me down again—the lesson was to trust no one, to walk in shadows, and never to expose your intentions to other cadets under any circumstances. An extension of the lesson was to avoid Courvoisie. Behind the cigar, the booming voice, and the penetrating eyes resided a competent Assistant Commandant who took the meaning of discipline seriously and who performed his duty with a kind of bloodhound infallibility that demanded respect from the criminal element in Citadel society.

The theory of grayness once more held dominion over my existence. Shell-shocked from the
Shako
experience, I once more retreated into my cocoon, firmly convinced I would never emerge until Graduation Day. Once more, the chameleon skin fitted me and I consciously strove to be nondescript and inoffensive. All would have been fine but for a single event which found my moral sensibilities deeply offended. Had I not become mad as hell and set myself up as a kind of avenging angel for the cause of justice, my journey toward graduation would have been a waltz.

George Owl, “O” Company Commander, was a nice guy with a poor sense of humor. Since most cadets spend half their time teasing other cadets, this could prove to be a serious impediment in the confining surroundings of battalion life. Whenever Mr. Owl walked by a group of Fourth Battalion cadets he generally was met with a chorus of “Hoot, Hoot, Hoot.” If he had ignored this unimaginative slur on his good name, the habit would probably have died a natural death. But George faced several problems. His Tactical Officer that year was an ambitious, self-aggrandizing officer who exerted a great deal of pressure on “O” Company to perform well in parades, inspections, etc. Most of this pressure fell on George and the strain was beginning to show. When clusters of jocks from “T” Company started chanting, “hoot, hoot” and when sophomores from his own company started doing it behind his back, something had to break. It did.

Fourth Battalion engaged in a battalion owl call on a Thursday night in early May. Owl paled with rage and frustration. His obvious irritation spurred the cadets on. He huffed and puffed, ranted to the crowd, and struck a rather ludicrous posture when he tried to halt the chanting by raising his arm defiantly. The next day proved to be critical in the life of George Owl, when the pressure finally became too much, and in a moment of supreme frustration, George Owl went momentarily berserk.

… Friday afternoon parade with its flurry of banners and strut of the bandsmen responding to the roll of drums, began with its usual precision. The companies marched out impressively, the First Sergeant barking cadence and the guidon fluttering above the marching cadets. Owl stood in front of Third Battalion watching the smaller companies file out to parade. “O” Company would be along in a matter of seconds. He would then lead them out in the field. But as the men from Kilo passed him, a sophomore in the middle of the ranks let out a loud derisive, “Hoot, Hoot.” Enraged, Owl wheeled toward the marching company, hoping to spot the offending cadet. All he saw was a cadet in the last rank laughing at his reaction. Without thought and without hesitation, Cadet Owl, Commander of “O” Company, and one of the top twenty ranking officers in his class, took his sword and plunged it into the leg of the sophomore who dared laugh.

The sword went in about an inch of thigh. Needless to say, the sophomore was taken aback, but in the shock of the moment simply marched out to the parade. He never lost step while this strange incident occurred. The moment passed, George cooled off and gamely led “O” Company to the parade ground.

“K” Company Commander swung his men into their appointed slots and waited for Charlie Buzze, the Battalion Commander, to give “order arms.” The young sophomore felt something warm on his leg, looked down, and saw that his dress whites were drenched in blood. He prudently posted, walked off the field, and went straight to the hospital. Miss Maloney stopped the bleeding, then patched the wound. No stitches were required.

The timing of this event was important. It came at a time when a series of confrontations between cadet officers and cadet privates left ill-feeling among a large segment of the corps. Several months before, Peter Them, a senior private of gargantuan proportions, had squirted mustard on the chair of Jerry Bayne, a Cadet Major. Bayne rose out of his chair in the mess hall with a great orange blotch staining his otherwise flawless appearance. Bayne exchanged words with Them and the result was Peter the Great walking the Second Battalion quadrangle to the tune of sixty tours.

The rift between privates and non-commissioned officers widened when Rodney Engard, a football player with a low-frustration level, picked a cadet sergeant straight up in the air, held him there for several poignant moments, then showed him the way out of the room. A hot young “Tac” smelled Engard blood and demanded Rodney be shown the way out of Lesesne Gate. Debates flourished around campus. Some cadets, primarily officers, felt that Engard should be punished severely. Other cadets, privates, felt the cadet sergeant overstepped his jurisdiction and that Rodney should have thrown him over the fourth division. So the incident that the Company Commander could solve with a single meeting of the protagonists became a raging issue on campus. Rodney’s punishment was a mere 120 tours.

The most amusing incident occurred by accident. A tradition at The Citadel, time honored and rather sacred, took place every March when the seniors went out of wool pants for the last time in their careers. At the final supper in wools the underclassmen ripped the wool pants from the bodies of unprotesting seniors. The result was a motley arrangement of rags and loin cloths draped haphazardly over private and not-so private parts of the body. Pandemonium ruled unchallenged as wool-hungry sophomores pursued giggling seniors over and under tables. War whoops, screams, and the sound of ripping wool added spice to the strange, chaotic ritual of the annual pants-snatching contest. When it was over, seniors sat at the table naked from the waist down.

“This is not military, nor is it dignified,” said Jim Probsdorfer, Regimental Commander for the Class of 1967. His staff agreed. So an ultimatum issued from the lofty chambers in Second Battalion said that henceforth no senior shall be forcibly removed from his pants. Cadets grumbled, but Probsdorfer, as all Regimental Commanders, was a kind of surrogate god who held many thunderbolts in his pack of whiteslips. The appointed night came. The Corps, threatened with tours, confinements and/or death, responded very well at first. Even the putrescent wool pants of several senior privates went untouched by glittering sergeants who thought they would be doing The Citadel a favor by destroying them.

It started somewhere in the Fourth Battalion. Some lad known only to Jesus sneaked a surreptitious hand to the back pocket of some also anonymous senior and ripped the living hell out of his pants. The chain reaction spread throughout the battalion and within seconds every senior in the south mess hall sat admiring his fruit of the looms. Then a kind of rippling hush gripped everyone. Probsdorfer and several of his staff members stood with menacing glares before the rioting battalion. Silence. Probsdorfer walked slowly down the aisle beside the kitchen. Waiters scurried out to see what edict he would make to the fourth battalion staff, what punishment he would mete out to the offending companies. This impressive display of leadership was so awe-inspiring that no one seemed to notice the huge, weighty figure of John Bowditch, 260 pound behemoth, crawling like a G.I. under barbwire, squirming his way under table and chairs, positioning himself for the leap which would immortalize his name forever in any discussion of kamikaze maneuvers at The Citadel. Probsdorfer walked slowly, eyeballing the entire battalion, and did not see the huddled, massive figure of Bowditch crouched behind a chair Probsdorfer would have to pass. No one saw Bowditch until he sprang like an overweight leopard and drove a shoulder into the belly of an astonished Regimental Commander. He knocked him through the swinging doors which led to the kitchen, where they disappeared from sight. Seeing the Regimental Commander handled with such impropriety is something like watching the rape of the Pope. A gasp arose, hissing disbelief. Then all was silent. A moment later, Big John emerged. He waved Jim Probsdorfer’s wool pants like a victory banner over his head. The place went wild. Chicken bones filled the air. Gobs of mashed potatoes flung by fifty hands landed on chairs and heads. A food fight broke out in full force. Probsdorfer in probably the most humiliating situation ever encountered by a cadet officer, slinked out of the back door of the kitchen and scuttled to his room. Though Bowditch became an instant folk hero, a sort of Beowulf, this did not prevent him from walking sixty tours for “assaulting and humiliating the Regimental Commander and inciting to riot.” So when George Owl stabbed the sophomore private with his sword, the privates of the Corps were more concerned than usual about the punishment the Commandant’s Department would recommend. Cadets argued the various aspects of the case. Would the fact that Owl was a Company Commander affect the thinking of the powers who resided in Jenkins Hall? It did. The word spread slowly, but a few days after the parade, a recurrent rumor spread through every room of each battalion: Owl was going to get off scot free, without any punishment whatsoever.

Believing in the natural order of things, I was more astounded than angry. It seemed inconceivable that Owl would not receive even a single demerit for plunging a sword into another cadet’s leg. No matter how much pressure he was under, no matter what prior conditions contributed to Owl’s actions, I could see no justification in condoning his act completely. The administration merely whitewashed the incident. The sophomore prudently kept his mouth shut after his Company Commander explained the likely consequences if he (the sophomore) tried to crucify Owl.

Mike Devito, my roommate, suggested we do something. Bob Patterson and Bob George had come to our room for one of those interminable bull sessions which in retrospect often seem like the most valuable experiences of college life. We discussed every facet of the Owl case, determined that justice was miscarried, and pledged to bring the festering boil to a head. We discussed my harrowing escape of the year before and agreed whatever was done would be done in absolute secrecy, that we four and no one else would know the plans. Before the night had ended, we resolved to write an underground letter.

Bob Patterson dated the Chaplain’s secretary, so we had access to a mimeograph machine and an unlimited supply of paper. I wrote a terse, unemotional letter which was intended to arouse the ire of the Corps. I did not intend to turn fourth battalion into a vigilante committee—which almost happened. I entitled the letter: The Owl Call. In the purge which took place after distribution, no one managed to save a single copy of the letter. Here is the gist of the letter.

OWL CALL

On May 6, 1967, Cadet Owl, a Company Commander, stabbed Cadet Williams, a Private in Company “K.” If this offense had been committed in the civilian world, Mr. Owl would be charged with “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to maim.” He could serve up to ten years in a state penitentiary. But he was fortunate enough to have stabbed a private and justice is meted out with greater severity to privates, than to officers. Ask yourself this question: if Private Williams had stabbed Captain Owl with a sword, how many hours would he have lasted on The Citadel campus. Private Engard pushed Sergeant Smith and received 120 tours for his efforts. Private Bowditch ripped the pants off Colonel Probsdorfer and received 60 tours for his troubles. Private Them put mustard on Major Bayne’s chair and received 60 tours for this indiscretion. Is mustard on pants a more serious offense at The Citadel than blood on pants? The sword is the cadet officer’s symbol of leadership, the finite object which sets him above the average cadet. When this symbol is abused so flagrantly and with such vicious results the officer at fault should be required to pay the consequences. The cadet private should be equal to the cadet officer when punished by the Commandant’s Department.”

A CADET OFFICER

Signing the letter “a cadet officer” was Bob Patterson’s idea, to throw the scent off me. On the following Thursday, Mike, Bob Patterson and I left the barracks ten minutes before evening formation. Each of us carried massive stacks of letters. We walked nonchalantly, hoping not to attract any attention. We hit the mess hall on the run and spread our propaganda tract as quickly as possible. Within five minutes every table in the mess hall was amply supplied with the first underground letter of the decade. In another minute we stood retreat with our company. We chuckled and grinned to ourselves, as the other companies moved out to mess.