Okay parents before '02, why didn't you share the ultimate West Point secret? But not to worry, I think I figured it out. Yes, I have figured out what is REALLY under the West Point hills. What a well kept secret.
Let me back up on this story.
I went to PPW in Oct. of '98 when our cadet was a plebe. I saw the barracks room. Three girls in a room that size and so little space for "stuff." Whew! No accumulation possible! (Yes, I had lived through a teenage room where a path to the bed for a good night kiss was worse than a Buckner obstacle course).
And, I heard the presentation on the TAC's - they were on our side. (Of course I heard immediately from the New Cadet, "Do NOT ever, EVER contact my TAC.")
I also heard over the four years about the SAMI's. "We are not sleeping tonight - there is a SAMI tomorrow and we need to clean our room." Okay. Why all night if there are three of you in that little room? How messy can it be? "We need to get rid of all our 'stuff." Hhmmm. Why didn't I worry? It was going to the locker room and "Mom, there just isn't much space down there." Good, thought I ever so naively - they make them clean their stuff. Did anyone ever notice that the TAC's we are supposed to trust never had a SAMI AND a locker room inspection on the same day?
And then graduation week. Mom can't see you tonight - we have to have all our boxes ready by tomorrow (Tuesday of grad week). Tuesday - well Mom I mailed off 15 boxes to you. The Air Force will contact you to deliver them (we live near an air force base) FIFTEEN???? Fifteen boxes in that little barracks room and locker room "with not much room in it"?? Naive again.
By the end of grad week there were four more boxes shipped home, plus important items like computer and saber in aunt's car to drive home, plus her car (a land rover) filled to the brim so only two people could sit in it. All that turned into five more boxes. That's right 24 boxes of "stuff". Oh yeah - plus one very large suitcase and one super oversized stuffed full backpack that had carried around all her paraphanalia when she was in Africa last summer. It makes a rucksack look small.
Where was all this stuff? I figured it out. Those hills are not filled with granite - they are underground bunkers that make bin laden's look like huts. Over the last two hundred years, our industrious cadets have hollowed them out for extra storage space. I also discerned that quite possibly there is a system to space allocation. Like those from west coast states get more than those from the east coast. Since we are from Washington state, of course that gave her tons of room to accumulate this stuff over four years.
Really, this is the only explanation I can possibly come up with for where she had squirrelled away all this stuff. Anyone else have a similar experience?
And now the Air Force gets to move it all to England because we live closest to an air base and that is what is in England. In the meantime, happy grad has gone on duty back east and Mom gets to oversee the packing and shipping of this vast accumulation. I hate to see the next move after she has squirrelled away stuff in an apartment if this much can come out of a barracks room.
Don't you think there should be a warning sent out now to the Firstie parents about all this?
Sincerely,
Charlotte Lamp
WPP-GRAD Moderator
