Sod

Two times every year the Academy grounds get a complete face lift. This happens right before Parent's Weekend and graduation. Colorado is a horrible climate for growing anything but rocks, but USAFA will not accept this. They use vast amounts of water, energy, and money trying to defy Mother Nature. The liberal dosage of sod is the best example of this phenomenon. They bring in hundreds of pallets of sod in order to make it look like grass can actually grow at USAFA. To a logical person, using taxpayer money to re-plant the Academy twice a year does not make very much sense. At some point you would cut your losses and deal with rocks, AstroTurf, or dirt.

This is the perfect example of how the Academy tends to focus on pleasing visitors rather than pleasing cadets. The upper leadership really doesn't care how cadets view the institution or function in it, but they do care how visitors look at it. You would also imagine that the greatness of the institution would speak for itself; and no one really cares if the grassy area right outside the east part of Sijan Hall has fresh sod. For the visitors out there, we hope that your judgement only goes surface deep and you can be easily pleased with grass. Just make sure to only visit around Parent's Weekend or graduation, though.

Upper Leadership Will Not Fill The Fountains Because Of Safety Reasons

There is a tradition here at the Academy that Firsties have done for generations. There are two glorious fountains on the Terrazzo that get filled up when the weather gets nice. Since the weather shifts between winter and summer daily, they make this date toward the end of spring semester. Every year these two fountains get filled so Firsties can continue their annual tradition. After your last class/final you jump into the fountains in full uniform and celebrate the end of school. Some prefer to belly flop and some prefer the cannonball, and some even bring an inflatable alligator with them.

I've been joking around for the last few weeks with some of my classmates by spreading the dirty rumor that the upper leadership has decided this tradition is dangerous and disrespectful, and therefore the fountains will not get filled up this year. I thought about making this post as a joke, sort of "The Onion" (recently unblocked) style making fun of something that is completely untrue. As of early Thursday morning, it looks like this false prophecy will actually be reality. There is a small chance that it could get filled up in the next 12 hours for Firsties who don't have any finals, but I highly doubt it.

Alas, classmates, another time-honored tradition has come to a close. On the bright side, though, there is a small puddle from the rain last weekend you can roll around in if you so desire . . .

Uniform as a Punishment

I've heard that often times Academy graduates are the sloppiest looking LTs on the block. They never iron their uniforms, shine their shoes, or shave. In my mind this argument has some credibility because the institution uses uniforms as a punishment. They make a feeble attempt to instill pride in the uniform by forcing us to memorize quotes, not put uniforms on the ground, and perform regular inspections. Unlike our ROTC counterparts, we have to wear the uniform every day for the entire Academy experience. It is never solely Air Force dress-up Thursday, but rather a constant barrage of uniform wear. Up until Recognition Doolies are required to wear the uniform 24 hours a day. It becomes a privilege to take off the uniform, but in reality it should be a privilege to put the uniform on. A common training technique for Doolies are making them do Superman drills. This is when they have to change uniforms about five times in a row in a certain amount of time; which is an event they dread. We force them to funnel through all different types of uniforms and them grade them harshly.

USAFA also has no problem using uniforms as a punishment. Commanders will tack on constant uniform wear as part of probationary restrictions. If you have to serve confinements, you have to wear one of the most formal uniform combinations. By the time graduation comes around, most cadets view the uniform in a negative light and don't put in the extra effort to make it look nice.

Confinements

Punishment is a tricky thing to dish out here at the Air Force Academy. During my freshmen year the system was undefined and punishment mainly consisted of paperwork. With new leadership comes new ideas, and one of the recent ones is sitting "confinements". One confinement consists of coming into a biology room in service dress and being "productive" for one hour and fifty minutes. No music, video games, sleeping, standing, talking, tobacco, eating, or anything that could be deemed "fun". Two unfortunate cadets are tasked to monitor the scum of the earth and make sure no funny business goes down. I have sympathy for these cadets, similar to how I feel about intramural referees. Every once in a while the officer of the day will stop in and ream the monitors for allowing the dirtbags to wear headphones and eat, and the monitors will then be forced to care and tell everyone to lock it up.

So for your average discrepency (parking ticket, missing a briefing, showing up late to class, driving your roommate to the hospital in the middle of the night for an emergency, going to someone else's room to finish up a group project after Taps, being outside the gate after Top Off is revoked and not wanting to drive back drunk, etc.) punishment usually starts at 20 hours of confinements, and can go all the way up to 200 hours. In this leadership laboratory where logic is supposed to be king, for some reason the best thing we could come up with to teach cadets a lesson and turn them into officers of character is dressing them up and making them sit quietly. But does the institution limit this experience to only USAFA cadets? No! If you decide to visit us from another Academy we have no problem dishing you out some cold hard justice: Air Force style!

Even though it is taboo to talk about why you got sent to the slammer, I will risk my life by telling you I was late to formation. The punishment? Unknown so far . . . the incident happened five weeks ago but the paperwork has been so slow going through the system I am sitting confinements now so that when my punishment actually does come down it won't be as harsh. So as I sit here repaying my debt to society, I'm sad to report that I am not being filled with pure respect and awe for this institution, but rather a bitter taste in my mouth only a few days before graduation.