In defense of The Citadel

In Charleston, SC, when there are slow news days (not enough accidents or police/school scandals or the Gamecocks are in a slump), the local newspaper (The Post and Courier) likes to occasionally snipe at The Citadel.

Recently, they published an article about hazing at my beloved Alma Mater which, like most articles about hazing at military schools, was just a little slanted. Generally these stories are built around a very small cadre of former cadets who went home after quitting early and have to come up with some excuse other than "I just didn't like it.", or, "It wasn't for me." Even Rick Reilly (when he was at Sports Illustrated) jumped into the bash The Citadel game back in 1992.

A former Marine a fellow alumnus penned a letter to the P&C editor in response to the article. Here's the link and the letter:

I am writing to comment on your June 13 article titled "Hazing remains a Citadel tradition: Cadets, parents question effectiveness of school's attempts to quash behavior." The title of this biased article implies incorrectly that The Citadel condones hazing and thus it occurs annually as an accepted "tradition." That is not the case.

I am both a proud Citadel graduate and an equally proud retired officer of the U.S. Marine Corps. These are two elite military corps I prize above others -- the U.S. Marine Corps and the South Carolina Corps of Cadets. Why? Because both espouse qualities and ideals that I value highly, believe in strongly and have long strived to live by.

What is the basis of the organizational success of these two corps? What is the root cause of their strong reputation for toughness, esprit de corps and discipline? These militarily advantageous qualities result from a commonly held sense of pride in belonging to an elite unit. What makes these units' members believe they are special? Their members' sense of having passed through a common crucible, a rite of passage of such duration and intensity that it makes its survivors proud, self-reliant and confident in their ability to adapt and overcome all challenges and challengers. Plus the knowledge that they have passed a rigid test of membership, like all who have gone before them. For the U.S. Marine Corps, this crucible is recruit training for all enlisted personnel, and OCS for its officers. At The Citadel, it is the plebe system. As the famed ancient Greek historian Thucydides once remarked, "He is toughest who is trained in the severest school." The Citadel is that school.

I served on the cadet training cadre for new cadet recruits my three upper-class years at The Citadel. Later, as a serving officer in the Marine Corps, I trained recruits at Parris Island and officer candidates at Quantico. The commonality of training methodology among Parris Island, Quantico and The Citadel is amazing in my professional experience.

What is even more impressive is that cadet NCOs are not as old and not yet as well trained or experienced as veteran Marine NCO drill instructors who perform a very similar task. Yet the cadets do an amazingly professional job nonetheless. Like Marine recruit training and OCS, the severe plebe system is to The Citadel what the equally severe recruit training and OCS regimen is to the Marine Corps -- it is the basic building block of who we are as Citadel men/women and as Marines.

The plebe system is intended to be stressful for a useful purpose. I hated every day of my knob year, but no other life experience has been as meaningful, personally or professionally. I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

Tough though it is, it is of benefit. One example is Capt. Al Kroboth, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) ('69). Al was the captain of the Bulldogs' basketball team my knob year. He was shot down on a combat mission over North Vietnam and captured on July 7, 1972, after having suffered a broken back and broken neck on ejection. Captured shortly thereafter and held for three months in the jungle with little food, he was then marched barefoot at night, amidst heavy U.S. bombing raids, up the Ho Chi Minh Trail about 350 miles to Hanoi and the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison. With intense pain, only rice balls for food and suffering from skin rashes and boils over his entire body, he survived while fiercely resisting his North Vietnamese captors.

Al was later asked by former teammate and famed author and Citadel grad Pat Conroy ('67),

"How did you make it, Al?"

Capt. Kroboth replied, "The plebe system -- I am a Citadel man."

Do acts considered to be hazing occur occasionally? Probably. Should they? No. Does the college investigate all allegations of hazing and severely discipline violators of pertinent regulations? Yes. Does the college encourage or tolerate hazing? No.

Since 2003 I have served in Iraq and Afghanistan with many young Citadel graduates who are company grade Army and Marine Corps officers, and they were all superb troop leaders. They are all products of that system. Nobody said plebe year would be fun, but it was a worthwhile learning experience.

I have the utmost confidence in the positive leadership being provided by Lt. Gen. Rosa and Col. Mercado, along with numerous tactical officers, and the cadet chain of command.
Your article does a disservice to the entire Citadel family. Let's give them our support and not snipe at this venerable and historic Charleston institution.

Walter F. McTernan
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
The Citadel Class of 1972
Taji, Iraq

Bravo Zulu to you, Colonel.

(The bold face above was mine for emphasis.)

And a short walk down memory lane....

Yours truly as a little knobby is somewhere in this 1986 picture (and so is a recent Space Shuttle astronaut, BTW).

Yours truly is also somewhere in this picture the day before graduation in 1991.

Where I was, where I am.

I remember sleeping in that morning.

It was the first day of a long awaited vacation. I had taken three weeks off and had made absolutely no plans. When I got up that morning, I would decide. Fly out west? Drive up to the mountains? I had no idea, and that was the beauty of it.

My cellphone had been ringing that morning, and I shut it off without looking to see who it was. Hopefully it was some clown from the department who might actually have to go look at a duty roster and see that I was on vacation. (And would not learn from the experience).

When I flipped the phone back on shortly after sitting up in bed, there was a message from my old college friend. "Dude. Turn on the television. Some blind fool just flew a passenger plane into the World Trade Center!" I flipped on the tube just in time to see the second aircraft strike. Having expected to see what was an almost impossibly improbable accident, the second crash hit me like a hammer.

We are being attacked.

I spent that morning in a rage, I am sure the neighbors knew why I was yelling obscenities in my little apartment. The trajectory of my entire life was going to be altered forever in ways I did not yet fathom, and I rang in this new era yelling "Bastards!" at some unknown and unhearing enemy on the television.

As the days went by, we all learned more about the tragedy, learned of friends who were there. I knew some folks in the towers, Federal agents, a businessman. My friends all made it out safely, only to run for their lives once again as the towers fell. I called a buddy of mine who was on the NYPD and asked him if they needed help, since I was on leave and could come up. He said don't bother; they were swamped with volunteers from all over. The idea of just sitting by idly was one of the most maddening things I have ever experienced. I considered the possibility of returning to the military, but I wanted to shoot bad guys, not watch a radar scope on a Navy ship, and I had gotten a little too old and too fat for the infantry.

Police work changed significantly after 9/11. Suddenly we were told what most old salty Sergeants had already known for many years: emergency services in the US are not prepared for large scale cooperative operations across jurisdictions. We started making changes that had been suggested by the 9/11 Commission as well as other think tanks. Radio frequencies became shared. Codes changed to plain language. Standardized incident management systems were put in place.

After the 2003 Iraq invasion, a call went out for experienced police officers to go there and help train up the Iraqis in the field of policing in a democratic society. I don't think I even thought twice about it before shooting an email to the contracting company that was handling the recruiting and training for the State Department. My old chief of police told me I could have one month's leave of absence for each year I had given him on the department. That came out to just over the year I needed. In May 2004 I packed my bags and was in Baghdad before the end of the month. Baghdad was the Wild West in 2004. As cops, we were left to handle our own force protection for the most part, so we did a large amount of our moving around on our own. Most of us had military backgrounds so at least we knew enough to not shoot ourselves in the feet on a regular basis. We even became pretty experienced at not doing stupid things and getting ourselves killed. Most of the time.

While I was in Iraq I met several Foreign Service Officers and had numerous informal conversations with them about their work. I was particularly interested in the officers who were assigned to the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. I was told that if that type of work intrigued me, that I should take the FS test. I filed that tidbit of information away, and completed my Iraq mission in June 2005.

I returned to Charleston, put back on my stripes and went back to work. Something was different though, not quite right. I missed the excitement of working in Iraq. I missed the changing surroundings. I still loved police work, but something was missing. I did know that my experiences in Iraq showed me that life is a precious and fragile thing, and Bubba, you had better live it to the hilt while you have it. I placed myself up for auction on the Internet and my future wife purchased me for $29.95 in September of that year (that's Mrs. Warpiper's running version. I like to think she paid more for me). A year later we were married, and Tater came along less than a year after that (not putting up dates, and will only say NO it was not a shotgun wedding).

With a new family at home, the prospect of spending the rest of my life missing birthdays and recitals while I work midnight shifts on the streets was just not appealing. After Tater was born, I told Mrs. Warpiper that I was considering taking the FS exam, and she was open to the idea. I then began the process that ended with me joining the Foreign Service in March 2009.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting at a cafe along the Saigon River eating breakfast while Mrs. Warpiper, Tater and Munchie were having a swim nearby. My cellphone was buzzing in my pocket. Text message. I ignored it because I was happily tucked into an omelette and the message could wait. When I finished eating I pulled out the phone and it was a colleague who lives in the same compound.

"Turn on the news. Obama about to make a statement about Bin Laden."

That could be only one thing. I had the manager put CNN up on the television in the cafe and watched the news, followed by the President's message. Other expats began drifting in to watch, mostly Australians, a few Europeans. All were visibly satisfied by the news, if not openly happy. I really did not know how to feel at that moment. Justice served? Definitely. Closure? Not really.

I suppose that for many family members of the victims of 9/11, Bin Laden's demise brings at least some closure to things. In a larger sense, this is just a waypoint on the road in terms of facing terrorist threats to our country. There are gigabytes of opinion on Bin Laden's death all over the blogosphere, and I'll keep my own to myself. They aren't very politically correct or respectful.

What I remember most about the moment was that here I am, sitting in a cafe on the Saigon River. My job has me directly involved in the business of keeping bad actors from entering the United States. I am married to a woman I may not have met if not for my Iraq-influenced decision to settle down. I have two beautiful daughters. I cannot escape the thought that the events that put me on this trajectory were caused by this murderer who finally got his in the head in a dirty compound in Pakistan. It is hard to know how to feel about that.

If not for Osama bin Laden, where would I be now?

Fate works in strange ways.

A little bit about the Foreign Service, Vietnam, et cetera.

Man, I haven't blogged in some time. Apologies to those of you who actually check in to the blog from time to time (hope I haven't lost you) and a big "Hi, it's me again!" to those of you who subscribe to the feed.

Thinking about why I have been so lazy for the past few months brings me to one of the realities of the Foreign Service that maybe a prospective FSO will find useful. Foreign Service work is busy. Everybody likes to claim that their particular occupation is either challenging, frenetic, or both. However, I can say that I am much busier on any given day in my current occupation than I EVER was as a street copper. The precinct where I spent a large chunk of my time over my 17 year career at the Charleston PD was no sleeper, either. Police work is 98% boredom and 2% sheer terror. Foreign Service work is constantly in motion. I have not yet found the time in my schedule to be bored.

That being said, if you are considering trying your hand at a career in the FS, let me give a little advice based on my thus far limited experience. This is a very rewarding career and you will accomplish much. You will be stretched to your limits in terms of the responsibilities you will be handed. I have yet to meet a FSO without enough to do. You will feel, at times, that there isn't enough time in the day to properly address all your duties, and you will be correct in that feeling. There isn't. But as I come to the week where I must put together my EER (that's the FSO employee evaluation that you do annually ... mostly annually) I am literally staggered at everything I have done since arriving in Saigon this time last year. Aside from having to learn all the ins and outs of being an immigrant visa officer, there have been many ancillary projects and duties that have filled my time. Most of those, especially being heavily involved with the Vietnamese Amerasians, have been rewarding. Very rewarding. I haven't felt this way since my year in Baghdad running around with my head on a swivel with an M-4 while simultaneously trying to help prop up a national police force.

All this being said, my free time has become precious to me. So, I don't blog much. I'll try to do better. Quite frankly, when I get off work and come home and the choice before me is to relax with a beer or blog... well, the beer almost always wins.

Now for some pictures and running commentary!

I went to Hanoi and played the pipes for the Marine Ball this last November. I've played Marine birthdays for about the last 15 years or so, and didn't want to break with tradition, so I shot the Gunny in Hanoi an email and volunteered my services. The Marine's Hymn is perfectly suited for the Great Highland Bagpipe, and it's great being able to do something for my favorite branch every year.

Anyhoo, while Mrs. Warpiper and I were in Hanoi, we took a stroll through the old quarter. We stopped at a bia hoi place (fresh beer) and sat down on the sidewalk to drink a few and have a snack. This was one of the best bia hoi places I have tried. Bia hoi is generally pretty weak in terms of alcohol content. It is brewed fresh each day, and generally speaking the bia hoi places will run out of beer towards late evening. The Vietnamese love bia hoi, and these places are usually busy with Vietnamese sitting and talking about the day's news over a beer and something grilled. The beers are cheap and refreshing, and the food at this particular place was excellent. Aside: bia hoi is also known as bia tuoi... 'tuoi' being the southern word for fresh, I believe.

I think I drank about 12.

Now you have the address if you're ever in Hanoi. Excellent grilled pork.

Hoan Kiem lake is in the middle of the old quarter. There is a legend that one of the old kings of Vietnam (maybe one of the Hung Kings... I don't remember exactly) was given a sword by a turtle that swam in this lake. Our hero used this sword to drive off the invaders from the north (Chinese or Mongol... don't rememeber that one for sure, either, but Vietnamese history is full of examples of how they have thrown out foreigners.... especially those from the north.) After using the sword to liberate Vietnam, it was returned to the turtle in the lake. Hoan Kiem has an island in the middle, connected to the shore by the bridge in the picture.

On the island in the middle of the lake is a pagoda dedicated to the Vietnamese king who accepted the turtle's largesse. It is quite beautiful, and includes a very large, preserved soft-shelled turtle. I didn't think that soft shelled turtles got that big. Maybe it was just an artificial turtle. A cooter that big would feed a whole town in south Georgia for a month. Apparently, this lake used to be full of turtles like this, but no longer. Maybe they fed a town in north Vietnam.

This is Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. They have a pretty cool changing of the guard ceremony that I was able to catch on video. Uncle Ho is actually in there, and you can go in and see him. He has been pickled a la Lenin and Stalin. In fact, the rumor is that for about one week a year Uncle Ho gets shipped off to Russia (the Russians are pickling experts) and gets a touch up. I was not able to go in and see the old feller, but I hear he looks young for his age.