For me/classmates, we dressed in PTs, made sure our socks were motivated and waited for upperclass in the P-way: "PLEBES! HIT THE BULKHEAD!" We dashed out our doors, squared our corners, hit the bulkheads and reported. There was much shouting and a recording of mortars and gunfire on a boombox (hey, I told you it was a while ago). Then rack and uniform races followed. At some point my classmates and I sort of realized, hey, we've done this before, this ain't so bad.
It was not too much later than that, then the 3/c squad leaders introduced themselves and the 2/c turned on the lights and rolled containers of ice cream on desk chairs down the Pway. This sounds utterly absurd, I realize, but I was standing there in parade dress uni, sweating like Muhammad Ali, and I thought, "Damn. I can do this."