1 ea. Barracks, Beast

BARRACKS
CO ORDERLY ROOM

First Day

1 ea. Bag, Plebe, 44 items*
1 ea. Box, lock
1 ea. Cleaner, Brasso
1 ea. Clipboard

12 ea. Hanger, clothes
2 ea. Lock, pad, comb.
1 ea. Pen, ball point
1 ea. Pen, marking
1 bk. Stamps, postage
1 ea. Tumbler, glassware

* Contents of Plebe Bag:

1 ea. Bag, barracks
1 bx. Balls, cotton
2 pr. Bands, boot
1 ea. Belt, trous, subd.
1 ea. Binder, 5x8”
1 ea. Book, memo
1 ea. Box, soap
1 ea. Broom, whisk
1 ea. Brush, nail
1 ea. Brush, shoe
1 ea. Brush, tooth, Fuller
1 ea. Buckle, belt, subd.
2 ea. Buckle, BP
2 ea. Buckle, WP
1 ea. Cloth, Blitz
1 ea. Cloth, Century
1 ea. Cloth, Shino
1 ea. Comb, 5”
1 ea. Cover, FD hat
1 ea. File, nail
1 ea. Filler, 5x8”
12 ea. Handkerchief

1 ea. Horn, shoe
1 ea. Kit, sewing
1 pr. Links, cuff
1 ea. Necklace
2 ea. Net, 12x18”
2 ea. Net, 20x30” yellow
3 ea. Net 24x36”
1 ea. Pad, scratch
1 tb. Paste, tooth, Crest
1 ea. Pencil, mech.
7 ea. Pin, laundry
2 ea. Pocket, BP
2 ea. Pocket, WP
2 cn. Polish, shoe Kiwi
4 ck. Soap, Dial
1 bx. Stationery
1 pr. Support, book
1 ea. Tape. transparent
8 ea. Towel, bath
3 ea. Washcloth
1 ea. Cover, Cap, Rain
1 kit, Dental

So much about the military is foreign, alien to civilians.

Imagine how overwhelmed all the new cadet candidates are on R-Day when they go from station to station, receiving new uniforms, bags of stuff, and so many pieces of equipment it makes their heads spin.

This bag o’ Plebe stuff was deposited upon us as we entered our Beast company areas for the first time. After reporting to the cadet in the red sash, we reported to our new company areas. My R-Day tag says we received our “Plebe Bag” and various and sundry other items from the Company Orderly Room; my memory says all this… stuff was already laid out on our unmade beds in our new rooms when we got there. We just had to inventory it to make sure it was all there. Half the stuff, I had no frickin’ clue what it even was! I just remember being overwhelmed by all these things we had to put away. And we couldn’t just put them away wherever. Oh, no, there was a specific place for each and every item we owned.

West Point was an anal retentive’s heaven. So organized, so structured, so black and white.

At the same time, so confusing, so overwhelming, so disorienting.

We were issued books with pictures and diagrams that told us where each and every item we now suddenly owned was to go. There was no room for modification, interpretation, or self-expression.

We had to unlearn our evil, slacker civilian ways and assimilate the much more logical, orderly, practical Army ways.

This was our task during Cadet Basic Training, not unlike the task of new soldiers in Basic Training in the Regular Army. But at the same time, we had to assimilate West Point ways. And one should never confuse West Point with the “real” Army. Or with the real world, for that matter.

We had all entered a strange, foreign land when we off-loaded those buses in the Cadet Area at West Point on that hot day in early July.

We would spend the next six weeks being indoctrinated, trained, conditioned, hazed, and motivated to eat, live, and breathe the West Point way. When we were done, if we made it that far, the West Point way would seem normal, natural, the ONLY way.

And we would love it….