Throwing the Dog a Bone

One of the most prominent tactics the leadership uses here at the Academy is to throw the dog a bone. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it refers to how trainers deal with fighting dogs. Throughout their lives, trainers work the dogs until they can barely move, let alone be in perfect fighting shape. They will tie dogs up to treadmills for hours on end, put them on the brink of starvation, and beat them periodically. Then every once and a while, they may throw the dog a bare bone with no meat on it for them to chew on. To the dog, this "kind" and "generous" act by their captor is met with happiness, thankfulness, and praise for their master. But in all reality, this "treat" really isn't anything special at all, probably just some leftover table scrap that the trainer was going to throw away anyway. For at least a little more time, the dog doesn't rise up against his master and bite him in the neck. This is exactly how the Academy treats cadets.

Let's take mandatory breakfast as an example. A few years ago there wasn't mandatory breakfast. Then one day, in an effort to put the "M" back in military academy, someone thought it would be a good idea to force cadets to wake up at some unholy hour every morning to eat watery eggs. By doing this, the leadership now had more opportunities to punish cadets. They could get cadets for showing up late, being in the wrong uniform, and not standing at attention. The real genius of the act was establishing a new standard for cadet life. By implementing this new policy (which is generally looked at negatively), it gave the leadership a tool to reward cadets. Every once in a while we are "rewarded" with an optional breakfast day. And what is the sentiment associated with this optional day? Is it anger that we've been going to mandatory breakfast every other day, a major change in the status quo that wasn't around a few years ago? Is it apathy because this is how cadet life should always be? No! It is happiness, thankfulness, and we praise the leadership for being so kind and generous towards us, and even going so far as to say that they finally understand us.