Last week was just a joy…
I wish there was a button to indicate sarcasm when typing.
On Wednesday night we had people from the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Company here to perform a condensed version of Macbeth for all of the plebes currently taking the Literature course. The events of that night poisoned the rest of the week.
I suppose a good place to start is that in regards to briefings and other presentations of this variety, cadets as a whole display an abhorrence for being forced to sit and listen to someone. Typically, it results in an obviously false motivation, excessive clapping, etc. On Wednesday however, it went a little far.
I suppose that our actions would be close to anything you might find in a high school, which explains why many of my classmates feel we did nothing wrong. However, I hope that those who do not see can at least understand what those of us who can are saying. Regardless of how many of that class have only been out of high school for almost a year, we are training to lead soldiers. People think that we are in our first year, so we have an excuse. I disagree.
More than anything, I think that the biggest problem on Wednesday was the way people treated each other, their own classmates. There is a huge stigma against asking questions at these kinds of things. Mostly because many people feel that if we don’t ask questions we can leave sooner. But also, many people just ask really stupid questions.
I was actually surprised at the questions on Wednesday though; there were some really good ones. There were of course stupid ones too. Regardless of the question, our class would erupt in some kind of noise or another. This prevented the questions from being answered right away, and just gave a really unprofessional display.
The play did invite interaction from the audience and I don’t deny that, but I think that as a whole, our class did not know where the line was. This prompted a 0530 meeting with the Brigade Command Sergeant Major. There was a great deal of speculation about what would happen there, especially after the uniform was sent out as PT’s with running belt and camelbak.
In the end though, it was just a stern talking to, from CDT CSM Diakabana, CDT 1CPT Amsler, and the Dean, BG Finnegan. I don’t know about you, but when a general tells me that he’s “ashamed” of me, it’s not good. We also heard from our class president as well as a few members of the class who had suggestions on how to improve our class.
Now, I am the first to admit that some of the ideas were downright silly. Many people in the class thought so too and felt the need to make their disagreement audible through moans, laughs, etc. This is EXACTLY the kind of behavior that led to this in the first place. I may disagree with something, but I’m not going to announce that in an improper setting.
The final part of all this is that we are all writing apology letters to the group who came, regardless of whether we were there. I was there and have already written my letter. I don’t know how effective all this will be as a solution to the maturity that seems to be lacking here, but we shall see.
I think there was something else I was going to talk about, but I don’t remember. It will come eventually.
Michael