<p>New Cadets Start Life at West Point
By THE JOURNAL NEWS
THE JOURNAL NEWS</p>
<p>June 27, 2006</p>
<p>For most of the new cadets reporting to the U.S. Military Academy yesterday for Reception Day, the transformation from civilian to military life was swift, thorough and a little traumatic.</p>
<p>Included on the day's packed itinerary were close haircuts, marching lessons and, by the evening, a ceremonial oath of allegiance before their family and friends.</p>
<p>When it came to learning the military lifestyle, some were more prepared than others.</p>
<p>New cadets Samuel Aidoo of New Castle, Calif., and Tyler Gordy of Las Vegas are both combat veterans.</p>
<p>Aidoo, 22, served three months in Afghanistan, doing reconnaissance, and three months in Iraq, where he helped raid and secure the country's Haditha Dam. Gordy, also 22, the recipient of a Purple Heart, spent more than 11 months in Iraq, raiding insurgent safe houses and patrolling for improvised explosive devices.</p>
<p>They have the Army basics such as shining shoes and, as Aidoo said, "getting yelled at" down. It's academics that they were more concerned about. To prepare for hitting the books at West Point, each spent a year at West Point Preparatory School in Fort Monmouth, N.J.</p>
<p>"For us, for the most part, work doesn't necessarily require you to sit down and read a textbook," Aidoo said.</p>
<p>"The transition is hard," Gordy agreed.</p>
<p>But both men said they were excited about starting at the academy, as was Christopher Gaulin, a recent Hastings High School graduate.</p>
<p>Gaulin had trouble sleeping Sunday night and awoke yesterday about an hour before sunrise. He was too excited to feel tired.</p>
<p>The 17-year-old had been waiting for this day for a long time since seventh grade, to be exact, when an uncle first told him about the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.</p>
<p>"It's always been a dream of mine to be part of something big," he said.</p>
<p>Gaulin's mother, Judith Parton, also didn't get much sleep Sunday night.</p>
<p>"I think I'm more nervous than he is," she said with a laugh.</p>
<p>Along with combat veterans and American teenagers, this year's incoming class has its share of international representation.</p>
<p>A program run by the U.S. State Department allows foreign cadets to study at American service academies in hopes of fostering better relations between military leadership in the U.S. and other countries. Foreign West Point cadets this year include the academy's first Iraqi cadet. Jameel, whose last name is being withheld by the military for security reasons, hails from Baghdad.</p>
<p>"He is very focused and very excited about the opportunity not just to learn the lessons of West Point but to take those lessons back to his country once he's commissioned as an officer," said West Point spokesman Lt. Col. Kent Cassella.</p>
<p>For all new cadets, the day began at the academy's Eisenhower Hall, where after a short briefing, the soon-to-be plebes West Point slang for freshmen were given exactly 90 seconds to say goodbye to their families.</p>
<p>They then boarded a bus to Thayer Hall, where they changed from their own clothes into white T-shirts and black shorts and received loads of other standard-issue clothing including sandals, socks, more white shirts and 18 pairs of underwear. New cadets, West Point officials said, are allowed to bring only so much clothing with them to campus; the academy helps compensate for the rest.</p>
<p>Thayer also was where cadets were divided into their respective companies. Before entering the classrooms where their companies would meet, the cadets were told to stand outside their rooms at a red line marked on the floor.</p>
<p>It seemed simple, but it presented trouble to those who shuffled their feet up just before the red line, prompting stern reprimands from academy juniors and seniors leading the exercise.</p>
<p>"New cadet, you will step up to my red line," yelled one cadet leader. "I said, up to my red line, not behind my red line."</p>
<p>It was not the last time that day the cadets would hear angry rebukes. Looking in the wrong direction was enough to evoke a berating holler from upperclassmen, who were largely responsible for running Reception Day.</p>
<p>"They're supposed to be confused and stressed and not really know what's going on for most of today," said Kirsten Dawson, 20, a West Point junior originally from Princeton, N.J., who gave the cadets a crash course in military courtesy yesterday outside the academy's barracks.</p>
<p>The austere treatment, Dawson and others said, teaches cadets the importance of following orders, coping with stress and paying attention to detail skills critical during combat.</p>
<p>"It's a shock to their system, and that's the effect we want," Dawson said.</p>
<p>There will be more shocks to come.</p>
<p>For the next 6 1/2 weeks, new cadets will take part in Cadet Basic Training nicknamed "Beast Barracks" where they will undergo physical training, take long marches and practice tactical maneuvers and rifle marksmanship before being formally accepted into the Corps of Cadets in mid-August.</p>