Bad boys, bad boys....
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Email to friendI remember a few "interesting" stories from my 2 years at FUMA. (1964/65)
My first year room-mate decided to bring a bottle of wine back from holiday leave. Naturally, he got caught sippin' on it during CQ, by our platoon leader. The platoon leader gave the kid a break. He instructed him to totally destroy the bottle in a GI can with the butt of his MI (we kept our rifles in our lockers in those days) and to obliterate any semblance of the label . But then came the platoon leader's battle with his conscience. There was, after all, an honor code to be observed. He ended up turning the kid in. Roomie was gone the next day and I never heard from him again.
Then, possibly in the next year, there was an incident that revolved around the Friday night movie. The movie shown that night was "Bye Bye Birdie". Following, or maybe during the movie, a few cadets thought it would be funny to paint on one of the buildings, "Bye Bye Georgie". George was the first name of the cadet Battalion Commander. I don't remember if it was Hatcher Hall that was desecrated, or an adjacent building, but the tag was very prominent. As you might imagine, the Commandant and the staff came unglued! There was talk of interogating every single cadet, one at a time under blazing hot lights. Before it came to that, a few suspects were rounded up and exposed to a black light which showed up the paint residue on their hands. They admitted their guilt and were gone very quickly too. I remember those guys attaining sort of folk hero status for a while after that, mostly because it took such incredible nerve.
jswalby
I'm not sure that your story is correct, unless it happened again.
I left FUMA after 11th grade (to attend an overseas school). During 1963-64, a couple cadets were caught painting the top of Hatcher Hall in florescent paint.
You are right. They lined us up all to be inspected. Little did we know that the brilliant science teacher, CPT [his name is on the front of A Company's bldg] had blacklights. Cadets would walk into the bldg and he would shine the lights on their hands. When the first cadet was caught, the other just gave up and took himself out of line.
He was NOT dismissed much to my surprise. In fact, in my yearbook he wrote: "Remember how it looked" on a photo of Hatcher Hall. Perhaps he wasn't allowed to come back. Why he wasn't dismissed I don't recall.
However, and I could be wrong about this, I don't recall any "Bye Bye Georgie." I think it was more volatile than that: perhaps something along a more mundane version of "F* FUMA" or something like that. Probably not that profanity as they would have kicked him out.
Back in Medieval times (mid 50's) the honor Code covered Lying Stealing,Cheating, and failure to report an Honor violation.Getting caught with alcohol was instant dismissal.Drugs were a non-issue in those happy days.If asked by cadet or Faculty if we had participated in mass mischief the response was always,"Sir, that is an improper question".We were not required to incriminate ourselves nor were we required to report someone for a non-Honor
Code infraction.I am curious as to the current interpretation of the Honor Code.