"Move out! Move out! Move out!"
Just as I want you to envision what we were wearing at West Point, I also want you to have a good visual of how we moved from Point A to Point B.
Or from West Point A to West Point B. As the case may be.
You might be thinking that we… walked.
Logical enough.
But you would be grossly mistaken.
New cadets don’t “walk.” They march or they run. They always “move out.”
During Beast, we pretty much marched everywhere. Be it as a company, a platoon, or our 10-12 man squads. If we were in a hurry, we might “double time,” which basically means we “jogged” in formation.
A lot of our Beast training was conducted at the squad level. And we would march in a single file, our Firstie squad leader calling cadence. The movie Stripes had recently come out, and our squad leader was partial to “Doo-Ah-Diddy.” That was not an official Army cadence. But then again, not many of them were; most cadences were R or even X rated. (“I wish all the ladies/were pies on a shelf/ And I was the baker/cuz I’d eat ‘em all myself.”) You get the idea.
If we were going somewhere alone as new cadets, say, for example, from our room to the bathroom, we had to “ping.” Ping meant you had to walk 120 steps per minute, your arms pumping wildly, so that it looked like you were moving out with a purpose. If it didn’t look like you were moving fast enough, an upperclassman would yell after you, “Move out, new cadet! Move out!” And you damned well better move out.
You had to look directly in front of you wherever you were going; you could not “gaze around.” If it looked like you didn’t know where you were going, you would be hazed for not knowing where you were going. (Not a good thing.)
If you were outside, as long as you were in the cadet area, you had to ping. There were well-delineated boundaries. Within these boundaries, you had to ping. Only outside of those boundaries were you allowed to “fall out,” or walk like a semi-normal human being. Very rarely during Beast did we get to go outside the cadet area when we weren’t in formation. And walking normally did not mean meandering or lollygagging. You were still supposed to move out with a purpose at all times.
If you were pinging across the area and you had to change direction, you would have to do so… distinctly. If you were turning a corner, you had to “square the corner” – i.e., make an abrupt 90 degree angle turning movement.
If you were going up or down stairs, you had to hug the outside railing and lift your forearms so they were parallel to the ground. As you rounded the corners of the stairwell, there was no “rounding” going on. No, no, no. That’s right, you had to square the corner.
Inside the hallways of the barracks, you had to ping along the inner wall. I cannot tell you how many new cadets got scratch marks on their watches from having them scrape against the wall!
“Move out, new cadet! Move out!”
Not only did we have to ping during Beast, we also had to ping for most of plebe year. There may have been a point after which we didn’t have to ping – say, late in the spring – but I honestly don’t remember. All I remember from plebe year is pinging, pinging, pinging everywhere I went. And upperclassmen calling after me: “Move out! Move out! Move out!”
We did learn, eventually, that if you pumped your arms fast enough, it always “looked” like you were moving out fast enough. Even if you were moving fast enough but you weren’t pumping your arms hard enough, upperclassmen were still wont to stop you. So, the secret to pinging was: pump your arms furiously.
I never realized that pinging was odd until I came back to West Point the fall of my Yearling (sophomore) year and saw new plebes pinging across the area. I could not get over how absolutely, totally, positively ridiculous they looked. “Oh, my God,” I thought to myself, “THAT is what I looked like!”
It is one thing to move out with a purpose, quite another to “ping.”
It is amazing really, when you are going through something and all your peers are going through exactly the same thing, how “normal” it all seems. Until you get some distance. And then it looks as totally whacked out as it really is.
I don’t think plebes ping anymore. In fact, I am almost positive they don’t. I think they still have to move out with a purpose, though.
At least… I hope so.
Or from West Point A to West Point B. As the case may be.
You might be thinking that we… walked.
Logical enough.
But you would be grossly mistaken.
New cadets don’t “walk.” They march or they run. They always “move out.”
During Beast, we pretty much marched everywhere. Be it as a company, a platoon, or our 10-12 man squads. If we were in a hurry, we might “double time,” which basically means we “jogged” in formation.
A lot of our Beast training was conducted at the squad level. And we would march in a single file, our Firstie squad leader calling cadence. The movie Stripes had recently come out, and our squad leader was partial to “Doo-Ah-Diddy.” That was not an official Army cadence. But then again, not many of them were; most cadences were R or even X rated. (“I wish all the ladies/were pies on a shelf/ And I was the baker/cuz I’d eat ‘em all myself.”) You get the idea.
If we were going somewhere alone as new cadets, say, for example, from our room to the bathroom, we had to “ping.” Ping meant you had to walk 120 steps per minute, your arms pumping wildly, so that it looked like you were moving out with a purpose. If it didn’t look like you were moving fast enough, an upperclassman would yell after you, “Move out, new cadet! Move out!” And you damned well better move out.
You had to look directly in front of you wherever you were going; you could not “gaze around.” If it looked like you didn’t know where you were going, you would be hazed for not knowing where you were going. (Not a good thing.)
If you were outside, as long as you were in the cadet area, you had to ping. There were well-delineated boundaries. Within these boundaries, you had to ping. Only outside of those boundaries were you allowed to “fall out,” or walk like a semi-normal human being. Very rarely during Beast did we get to go outside the cadet area when we weren’t in formation. And walking normally did not mean meandering or lollygagging. You were still supposed to move out with a purpose at all times.
If you were pinging across the area and you had to change direction, you would have to do so… distinctly. If you were turning a corner, you had to “square the corner” – i.e., make an abrupt 90 degree angle turning movement.
If you were going up or down stairs, you had to hug the outside railing and lift your forearms so they were parallel to the ground. As you rounded the corners of the stairwell, there was no “rounding” going on. No, no, no. That’s right, you had to square the corner.
Inside the hallways of the barracks, you had to ping along the inner wall. I cannot tell you how many new cadets got scratch marks on their watches from having them scrape against the wall!
“Move out, new cadet! Move out!”
Not only did we have to ping during Beast, we also had to ping for most of plebe year. There may have been a point after which we didn’t have to ping – say, late in the spring – but I honestly don’t remember. All I remember from plebe year is pinging, pinging, pinging everywhere I went. And upperclassmen calling after me: “Move out! Move out! Move out!”
We did learn, eventually, that if you pumped your arms fast enough, it always “looked” like you were moving out fast enough. Even if you were moving fast enough but you weren’t pumping your arms hard enough, upperclassmen were still wont to stop you. So, the secret to pinging was: pump your arms furiously.
I never realized that pinging was odd until I came back to West Point the fall of my Yearling (sophomore) year and saw new plebes pinging across the area. I could not get over how absolutely, totally, positively ridiculous they looked. “Oh, my God,” I thought to myself, “THAT is what I looked like!”
It is one thing to move out with a purpose, quite another to “ping.”
It is amazing really, when you are going through something and all your peers are going through exactly the same thing, how “normal” it all seems. Until you get some distance. And then it looks as totally whacked out as it really is.
I don’t think plebes ping anymore. In fact, I am almost positive they don’t. I think they still have to move out with a purpose, though.
At least… I hope so.
posted by delta at 8:19 PM
1 Comments:
No more pinging, but move with a purpose - yes. You neglected to mention that new cadets and plebes are never, ever allowed to use the handrails on staircases.
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