Let’s see now, some highlights from my time as BattO, Tales from Bancroft Hall as related by sponsor family, and DH’s contribution, in general terms:
- Underage 3/c stashed beverages in the trunk of a friend’s car parked on the sea wall near Alumni Hall end. Attended concert in Alumni Hall. Kept making trips back out. One mid threw up on the back of an AF colonel sitting in front of them. A nearby company officer was able to round up the merry crew. (underage drinking, doing it on the Yard, degree of pre-meditation, public spectacle, discrediting the service, etc.)
- Underage 3/c (sense a theme here?), in unauthorized civilian clothes, stash beverages in the trunk of an unauthorized car in the lot of a local favorite brunch place, completely oblivious to the fact that there are 30 company officers, 30 senior enlisted, 6 BattOs and dozens of other USNA staff who go out to brunch around town. Mids go in and out, attracting the notice of a company officer, who followed them out, just in time to see them being arrested. They were all urinating against a tree in the parking lot during their beverage runs, and a customer called the police. The company officer was mine. The mids were not, but they are usually very easy to pick out.
- A first class was supposed to stand his final watch a few weeks before graduation. He had a buddy come to town, a former company mate who had graduated. The 1/c blew off his watch, went drinking with buddy, returned drunk on deck and, in his confusion, went to bed in his room from when he was a 2/c, after peeing in the shower. The women currently in that room did not appreciate the visit. His graduation was delayed from May to August, so he could finish his restriction. The Dant didn’t feel he could commission someone who walked away from an assigned watch and then compounded the situation. Mid had to tell parents to cancel all Comm Week plans - and tell his fiancée (and her family) he couldn’t marry her in June. [emoji33](The Scream emoji for those who can’t see it.) To his credit, he took summer school classes and volunteered to tell his story to the incoming plebe class.
- Intrepid group of night raiders moved the markers on Worden Field, removing one company marker from each regimental side, precisely re-siting all other markers. At next day’s p-rade, two companies had no place to go, and it wasn’t pretty. The guilty parties came forward when the Supe locked the entire Brigade down and cancelled the next holiday leave.
Black N* accelerants tend to be public embarrassment to USNA and the Service, really stupid choices as 2/c and 1/c, being arrested by civil authorities, poor choices being compounded by deliberate misconduct.
There are the funny-serious ones and the UCMJ-serious-lucky-to-be-retained ones.