Word: plebe
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...BASE of this school for soldiers is the fourth class system, a social system which allows a first class cadet to stop a plebe headed for bed at 1 a.m. and demand that he "talk" because he's heard the freshman is Australian and has an interesting accent. It starts on day one--"R" day they call it at the Point--when the new cadets come in at 8 a.m. and by 5 p.m. are shorn, supplied and marching in military formation...
...next two months, when plebes are put through basic training or "Beast Barracks," are a cadet's introduction to the system. "We take people who are just like you," one senior explains as 4000 identically dressed people eat cold pizza in the world's largest dining hall, "and in six weeks, we teach them to be one of us." It's like an initiation into a fraternity, explains another, "a big fraternity." "The new cadet's waking hours are completely controlled," reads the plebe's bible, or Bugle Notes. "They don't have time to think," one cadet explains...
Although the harshest plebe requirements have been dropped, some traditions remain. Plebes must take turns standing in the barrack halls and yelling out the dress for the day and the minutes remaining until formation. It is easy to recognize them; they are not supposed to initiate conversations and they must walk 120 steps a minute, always sticking to the walls of the stairwells and greeting upperclassmen. If another cadet wants to know what's happened in Iran yesterday, the plebe must answer. He is required to read and know the news on the front page of The New York Times...
...green and gray, sunflecked mountains and a small, calm lake, Army's Michie Stadium hardly seems an appropriate place for a football game. Perched on top of a hill and engulfed by an eerie pre-game quiet, the U.S. Military Academy's athletic battlefield is incongruously serene. As one plebe remarked with a smile, "Looks nice from the outside, doesn...
...Everybody is kinda making a mockery," plebe Vince Alonso said. "Young know, going around saying, 'Beat Hahrvahd,' with this phony British accent...