Disrespecting the Colors

I think it was my junior year (1988-89) that some guy in my company (Charlie) gave a Benny Hill salute during retreat. Somehow, Colonel Radcliffe spotted him from across the loop and proceeded to come over and lambast that kid. He didn;t get written up but I'm sure he would have wanted that instead.

I was on Color Guard in 85-86 with Wes Stone as CG commander and Tommy Daniels as Asst. CG commander. We lived in the Maples as I have posted before about our porch with the hammocks, spitoons and ashtrays. Yes, we used to have some vices although nasty-we were just trying to be cool. The three of us roomed together and in order to gain access to our room, you had to go through Craig Chamberlain, Peirce Whiteside and Boz Boswell's room. In fact several faculty officers who shall remain nameless, didn't even know our room was there. Tommy Daniels was a brave soul who depending which officer on duty for CQ, Daniels would just shut the door and watch TV or we would play cards(another No-No, remember playing cards were not allowed at all). I could post for hours about our wild CQ's. Anyway, every morning the flag would be raised as reveille(sp?) blew except for Sunday, no reveille. As we were instructed, the larger Sunday flag just had to be raised by 7:00am. Many times we raise the flag at midnight so we could sleep a little later. Boys being boys and not a lot to keep us occupied, Daniels said to me one Saturday night, "Let's put the Sunday flag up in our underwear!" Not exactly thinking clearly, I laughed and said "Yeah, that is a GREAT IDEA!" We stayed up late listening to his Prince "1999" tape-both sides" Insert jokes here! At about 2:00 AM, we decided after many Mountain Dews and bag of Levi Garrett chewing tobacco, we ventured out in our boxers and the big Sunday flag. It was a warm spring night, no t-shirts, no shoes, no socks, just our boxers. We were giggling the whole way across the street, along the side of B Company and then out to the flag pole. All of the sudden, we see head lights coming up the circle. "Oh No!" There were several shrubs around the flag pole. I had the flag still folded properly and I dove what I thought into the bushes, but I landed ON TOP of a bush, it cracked and smashed flat, but I NEVER let the flag touch the ground. I was all scraped up from the shrub I destroyed and Tommy and I were laughing nervously of who was coming. I will not name them, but it was two younger faculty officers returning from a night of "fun" as they were loud and boisterous and laughing themselves. They parked their car near the Junior School Gym and then walked to their apartments over the barbershop. After the coast was clear, we raised the flag very quickly and ran all the way back to our room. My legs were bleeding from the shrub and for the next remaining weeks at Retreat, we would look down at the smashed up shrub and giggle.
Many times I think back to memories like this one and I am so grateful for having the opportunity to attend FUMA and not just to smash shrubs, but I think of the pure innocence, genuine clean fun, the incredible memories and how much I truly loved so many of my friends I made there. As all of us have grown up and now have beautiful families of our own, I think how lucky we were to have had the chance in life to experience such an amazing place. I love reading all of the posts because when I hear stories, whether old or newer, I can relate and they take me back to my youth when our lives were a lot simpler and time did not seem to move as fast as it does now.

Along these same lines: Did everyone here salute the flag every single time they crossed the circle? I know I certainly did--It was like I was terrified there was a camera watching me or something. On one of my few visits back to FUMA since graduating I walked behind a group of cadets who didn't salute the flag and I couldn't believe it. So now I wonder if I was the only one who really worried about that rule.