Flashlight

During Basic Cadet Training at the Air Force Academy, the restrictions on first-year cadets are even tighter than they are during the academic year. During the academic year, taps sounds over the campus-wide giant voice at 2300 (11 pm) but most freshmen are still up working on the heavy academic load we carry. 

During Basic Cadet Training, also known as “Beast,” taps means lights out and you better be in bed by the 24th note of the bugle solo.

Because we are still in civilian to military transition during Beast, we have a little more supervision. Soon after the bugler puts away his instrument, upperclassmen, also known as “Beast Masters,” go around to each basic cadet’s room for Dormitory Inspection, AKA DI because it’s the military and everything must be  reduced to an acronym. 

I think legally they’re checking for the correct number of basic cadets in each room, but the real thrill for the Beast Masters is in catching any number of basic cadets doing stupid stuff in their room.

And because the Air Force Academy isn’t like most other colleges, “stupid stuff” is all relative.

Like tonight, the stupid stuff I’m doing is strobing my issued flashlight across the dormitory quad and into another basic cadets’ room. In a rare moment when we were allowed to converse freely with our classmates, we had coordinated the signal, which, when mirrored back, meant “head to the corner bathroom for some illicit chatter.”

Again, because the Air Force Academy isn’t like most other colleges, “illicit chatter” doesn’t mean anything dirty, it just means talking when we aren’t otherwise allowed to.

My room mate, unamused by illicit chatter and possibly hurt that her chatter isn’t illicit enough for me, is already fast asleep in her bunk.

So it’s just me, standing at the window, stupidly flashing a flashlight across the quad, waiting for the reciprocal signal so I know to head to the bathroom.

No return light.

I double check my flashlight and confirm it’s functioning properly. I flick the switch back and forth for another round of illegible morse code.

No return light.

Having proved my persistent nature in just getting in to the Air Force Academy, I refuse to give up on this process either.

I narrow the focus of the beam coming out of my flashlight, take more precise aim at my friends’ window and project the signal once again.

Then I see it! A flood of return light.

Except it’s not coming from the flashlight of a friend across the quad.  It’s coming from the reflection of hall light through our door, thrown open by the foe of a Beast Master.

There stands Cadet De Freitas. And because this is the first time I’ve done something stupid, correction, because this is the first time she’s caught me doing something stupid, she asks (loudly), “BARRETT!  What are you doing?”

I am still in that civilian to military transition so I’m not entirely well-versed in the exact way to respond, except I know there’s a “ma’am” involved.

So, standing there with my flashlight still on and still pointing across the quad, I say, “Ma’am!  Nothing!” which clearly is not the case and we all know it. Cadet De Freitas doesn’t even humor that statement with a response, instead stands there with a hand on her hip in a stance that means, “This is not going to end well for you” in civilian or military parlance.

And it doesn’t.

“Submarine,” Cadet De Freitas orders.

It may seem like a bizarre issuance for a school that isn’t nautically based, but as I’ve said, the Air Force Academy isn’t like most other colleges, and “submarine” is more verb than noun here.

Leaving my flashlight by the window (and probably still on), I ascend the ladder to my bunk. I submerge head first under the wool blanket and top sheet of my perfectly-made bed. 

“Ten!” Cadet De Freitas issues the sentence of my punishment. And I begin the execution of ten push ups under the cover and top sheet of my bed.

It may not seem like much of a punishment, but since most basic cadets don’t sleep under their covers, it is a hefty sanction. Especially when there are anywhere between 70 to 5,000 safety pins stuck through the sheet and blanket on our bed, securing hospital corners to the mattress to ensure the bed is tight enough to bounce a ROLL of quarters off of.

In fact, if Cadet De Freitas looks closer at my sleeping room mate, she’d see that she is laying corpse-like on top of her perfectly-made bed. But Cadet De Freitas is only watching me carry out my sentence.  Watching, and listening … as anywhere between 70 to 5,000 safety pins loudly pop out of their punctured position with each push up.

I resurface after completing my submarines and get into a position of attention for any further punishment, aside from the sleep I’ll now lose having to re-pin my bed (after Cadet De Freitas leaves).

Silently, I stare at Cadet De Freitas, waiting as she thinks of the next cruel, punitive action. 

I see an inspired idea illuminate her face, then fade. 

The radiance of another revelation reflects off her face, then fades.

The shine of a third suggestion strikes, then fades. 

Cadet De Freitas pushes past me to our window, counts the windows to identify the room of my friends, now flashing their lights to beckon me to the bathroom.

“Barrett, go to bed,” she orders as she leaves my room to impose the same submarine sentence on my friends.

“Yes ma’am,” I whisper back, still standing at attention. Until Cadet De Freitas shuts the door.

I scurry back to the window and frantically flash a steady beam of light in a circular motion, our prearranged signal for calling it off, whatever “it” was. They repeated the circular pattern with their flashlight and then both our lights went dark. I knew that they had received the message.

I was happy to take the heat for my basic cadet buddies. I would have to spend a significant hour or so re-making my bed, but they shouldn’t have to as well.

My dorm room door flies open again. De Freitas. “Barrett. Go to bed. I mean it.”

“Yes ma’am.”  

And I did.  Right after I re-pinned my bed.