End of Plebe Year

Hello all!

I am finished with my first year at West Point. It was full and busy, and I’m glad to say it’s done. I’m going to give you a brief (hopefully) synopsis of my year, but if you’d like to hear more please email me back.

Cadet life at West Point is very structured. The Corps of Cadets (all of the cadets at West Point make up the Corps) is divided into 4 regiments, and each regiment is divided into 8 companies for a total of 32 companies. I am in Company C-3, the Gamecocks. It has about 120 cadets in a pretty even split from all classes. (Speaking of graduating classes, all classes at the Academy have their own nickname – freshmen are plebes, sophomores are yearlings or yuks, juniors are cows, and seniors are Firsties.) Every day Monday through Friday we have breakfast and lunch formation after which we all go into the mess hall to eat. The mess hall has six wings and feeds the entire Corps (about 4500) in around 20 minutes. The academic day has four 55 minute class periods before lunch and two after lunch. We have an alternating Day 1-Day 2 schedule with usually 3-6 classes on either day. In the afternoon, we have time scheduled for intramural athletics, military training, or drill practice for parades. Every day from 7:30am to 9:30 our rooms are in morning inspection (AMI). During that time, our room doors must be open and our superiors can inspect our rooms. We can’t sleep during that time. After that we can close our doors and sleep. Once or twice a semester on a Saturday we have a much, much more strict inspection (SAMI). Cleaning typically takes all Friday afternoon and evening. It’s not very fun.

Plebe life has a few additions to normal cadet life. Plebes are responsible for three duties: minutes, trash, and laundry. Before every formation, several plebes spread out along the hallway in our barracks and call out the number of minutes until formation and the uniform for formation at the 5, 4, 3, and 2 minute marks. The point is to wake up anyone who is sleeping and get everyone to formation on time. For trash, we have to go to all the rooms in our company and take out their trash five nights a week. It can get pretty messy. For laundry, we gather laundry bags everyone puts outside their rooms on Monday morning and take it to be picked up by the laundry service. The laundry is returned a few days later, and we then deliver it to all the upperclassmen in the company in rank order. Outside of our rooms, plebes have to walk along the walls (except outside) with our hands cupped without talking or looking around. The only places we can “fall-out” (not have to do that) is in the academic or athletic buildings, or in our rooms. In addition to being “locked-up” we have to greet all the upperclassmen with the greeting of the week (usually “Beat [whatever team we are playing that week]”). We’re responsible for certain knowledge that carries over from Beast. The main knowledge we get asked is the days and the meals (we’re responsible for all the knowledge we learned during Beast, but the upperclassmen usually don’t remember it well enough to ask us). For the days, we have to know the number of days until certain events throughout the year such as the next football game, Christmas, spring, and summer leave, class banquet/dance weekends, and graduation. We also have to know the entrée, side, dessert, and drink for the next three meals. It was tough at the beginning of the year, but once I got the hang of it, it was real easy. Plebes are allowed one base weekend pass and we can earn one more based on academic, physical, or other performance, or for spirit (usually away football games). A weekend pass means we can go anywhere for a weekend. If we don’t take pass, we only have walking privileges, which is the little town outside West Point. Not being able to go out kind of stinks, but that’s life.

This year, I was involved in several clubs and organizations at West Point. First was Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF) which is praise and worship and a Bible study. I really enjoy OCF, and I’ve grown pretty close to those in my Bible study. In the fall I was part of the Theatre Arts Guild where I got to work behind the scenes at several shows (Celtic Thunder, Shen Yun Performing Arts, and Toby Keith) that came to West Point’s Eisenhower Hall Theater. I had trouble staying involved with TAG in the spring, but I’m going to try to start up again this coming fall. At the suggestion of my Beast squad leader, I joined the Model Arab League. MAL has been one my favorite activities at West Point. MAL is like the Model United Nations except it’s with the League of Arab States instead of the UN. I went to three MAL competitions: Boston in November, Ohio in February, and Nationals in DC in April. I earned outstanding delegation in our council (highest award) at Ohio, and West Point as a whole earned overall outstanding delegation. At Nationals, my partner and I received honorable mention for our council which is somewhere between 4th and 7th of the top 24 schools. MAL has been really awesome for me. At my brother’s suggestion, I joined the West Point Negotiation Project. The WPNP is partly aimed at the Academy and largely aimed at affecting the Army as a whole. We have monthly lunches with speakers who have experience in negotiation ranging from FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner to sports negotiator Ron Shapiro. I participated in the second annual West Point Negotiations Conference in March which had cadets from other service academies and ROTC programs and even several from the Royal Military College in Canada. I am currently on an internship (AIAD) in Minnesota at Boston Scientific which is through the WPNP. Next year I will be a WPNP Senior Leader in charge of the monthly brown bag lunches, and my brother, James, will be the co-Cadet in Charge. The founding director of WPNP (MAJ Donigian) has become a great family friend and even commissioned my oldest brother, John. WPNP has been a great experience, and I’m excited to continue working with it as I continue in my time at the academy. In February, I participated in the COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling-Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (MCM-ICM). The MCM-ICM is a four-day international modeling competition between teams of three people. I was on a team with two cows (juniors) who have become pretty good friends of mine. Of the 735 teams who competed in the ICM, my team’s report earned Meritorious which is the top 1-20%. One of the best parts of the competition was that I didn’t have to go to class, formation, or meals; I was on my own schedule for four whole days. All of these clubs, organizations, and competitions were wonderful and helped make my plebe year fun instead of horrible.

Academically, this year was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I think the sheer amount of classes surprised me most. That and I was pretty cocky after my senior year. Anyway, I had a full schedule both semesters. First semester I was taking 18 credit hours – intro to computing and info tech, chemistry, composition, western civilizations, multivariable calculus (my favorite), military movement (essentially gymnastics), and boxing. Second semester I had 19.5 credit hours – chemistry, literature, history of Africa, math modeling/differential equations, intro to warfighting, psychology, and fundamentals of personal fitness. I enjoyed most of my classes and liked most of my teachers. But I did have a few boring classes and teachers. It was a tough year, but I enjoyed it. The most exciting courses I’ll be taking next year are Arabic, Negotiation for Leaders, and Raquetball. I declare my major in the fall, but I still don’t know what I will major. Before coming to West Point I was dead set on mechanical engineering. Now, I’m not so sure. I really like math, and I know I want to do something that is heavily mathematical. My top choices are electrical or mechanical engineering. I’m also thinking about civil engineering, operations research, and mathematical sciences. And I’m considering minoring in terrorism studies (it’s a thing). West Point didn’t get its reputation for nothing; the academic program intense. I still have a lot to learn before graduating, and I’m going to take it one day at a time.
Having two brothers at the Academy definitely made my last year much better. I really enjoyed seeing and spending time with them after a two-year absence for Jim and three-year absence for John. I cherished it even more because I know it’s the last time we’ll be all together for so long for quite some time. The three of us in one location was also nice for our parents because they were able to visit us all at the same time. My brother’s being there also meant that I knew a cow and a firstie. One had a car and both knew people with cars. Needless to say, I was able to take full advantage of the OPPs (off-post privileges) that plebes earned after the Army won its bowl game in December. After spring break, I went out with my brothers pretty much every weekend. It was wonderful. I’m going to miss my brothers, but I am so grateful that God gave us this time together.

Toward the end of the year I had a mishap that slightly changed the remainder of my year. I broke and partially dislocated (fractured and subluxated) my thumb at the beginning of April playing intramural rugby. I had to fly down to Ft. Meade, MD the next week to get surgery. I had two pins in my hand for almost four weeks. I was in a cast or a brace for a total of eight weeks. It felt good to finally get the brace off and be able to use my hand again. I forgot to mention that I broke the thumb on my right hand, so I was writing left-handed for the last few weeks of school… into my final exams. Like I said, I’m glad to have my hand back.

After finals week was graduation week. Pretty much all cadets are at West Point that week and go to graduation. It was special for me because John was graduating. My parents came up, and we all got to spend time together. About an hour after graduation was John’s commissioning ceremony. He is now a second lieutenant in the US Army. I got to salute him. It was great.

Right now I am in Minnesota on a five-week internship at Boston Scientific. Right after this I’ll be going back West Point for a four-week field training with the rest of the Class of 2014. Then I will be headed home! I am very excited for my two weeks in Texas! But I am also excited for the great things I’ll be doing before then.
Well, this email has gone on for quite a bit longer than I intended it to. I think I’ve said most of what I wanted to cover. If you’d like to hear more or want to see some pictures, shoot me a message or click here. If you know someone who is starting at West Point this year or is interested in going, I’d be happy to talk to them. I’d also love to hear from you all! God bless!


In Him,
Andy Oswald

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen”
~ Philippians 4:23