- Joined
- Sep 4, 2006
- Messages
- 298
R-Day at Ft. Monmouth was weather-delightful and impressive considering the small size of the school.
A few quick stats as I remember them:
243 cadet candidates were expected to show up. 2 were MIA and a TAC officer was assigned to track them down. One cc withdrew his acceptance to join air force prep instead. Three quit on R-Day. There are 97 recruited athletes in the class. 24 are already serving in the Army. 109 are minorities. The average SAT score M/V for the class is around 1100. One cc has a SAT score of 1500+ but was sent to MAPS because he's been out of high school for a while. More stats should be posted on the USMAPS website.
Lunch for my son was a couple little cans of chef boyardee meat/pasta, some crackers, and a cookie. He said it looked like someone was cleaning out the food pantry and threw food randomly into bags. I asked him what the worst part of R-Day for him was and he replied, "All the standing around."
Speaking of not calling attention to yourself on R-Day, one parent told us his son has a tattoo and during tattoo inspection the WP cadre asked him what it meant. The kid replied, "It means 'warrior'." The cadre said, "Oh, you like to fight, eh? Then fight me!" The cadre tried to get the cc to rise to the bait, but the kid was smarter than that!
One of the nice features of the parent's side of R-Day was the availability of the West Point admissions officers. They were eager to answer questions. Also, many of the WP coaches were there to welcome their recruits. Teams met before in-processing.
The oath ceremony was very nice. Lots of patriotic and martial music preceded the opening of the ceremony. A female chaplain did a nice job with the invocation and the commandant gave an inspirational speech before swearing in the new cc's. Family members got five minutes to spend with their cc on the parade ground after the oath ceremony. The hugs given and received were extraordinarily strong and heartfelt. Today we said goodbye to a kid and later in the fall we hope to say hello to a man.
A few quick stats as I remember them:
243 cadet candidates were expected to show up. 2 were MIA and a TAC officer was assigned to track them down. One cc withdrew his acceptance to join air force prep instead. Three quit on R-Day. There are 97 recruited athletes in the class. 24 are already serving in the Army. 109 are minorities. The average SAT score M/V for the class is around 1100. One cc has a SAT score of 1500+ but was sent to MAPS because he's been out of high school for a while. More stats should be posted on the USMAPS website.
Lunch for my son was a couple little cans of chef boyardee meat/pasta, some crackers, and a cookie. He said it looked like someone was cleaning out the food pantry and threw food randomly into bags. I asked him what the worst part of R-Day for him was and he replied, "All the standing around."
Speaking of not calling attention to yourself on R-Day, one parent told us his son has a tattoo and during tattoo inspection the WP cadre asked him what it meant. The kid replied, "It means 'warrior'." The cadre said, "Oh, you like to fight, eh? Then fight me!" The cadre tried to get the cc to rise to the bait, but the kid was smarter than that!
One of the nice features of the parent's side of R-Day was the availability of the West Point admissions officers. They were eager to answer questions. Also, many of the WP coaches were there to welcome their recruits. Teams met before in-processing.
The oath ceremony was very nice. Lots of patriotic and martial music preceded the opening of the ceremony. A female chaplain did a nice job with the invocation and the commandant gave an inspirational speech before swearing in the new cc's. Family members got five minutes to spend with their cc on the parade ground after the oath ceremony. The hugs given and received were extraordinarily strong and heartfelt. Today we said goodbye to a kid and later in the fall we hope to say hello to a man.
