West Point
West Point had this fantastic ceremony of honoring the last student in the class on the graduation day. A reversed hazing sort of thing. A rite of socializing upon leaving, not entering a group.
They called this guy “goat.” The first goat showed up in the school record some dozen years after its establishing in 1802. The lads needed some time to exude such a sublime group organicism, understandable.
The cadets were crazy about their goats. A huge cry would rise after the winner’s name was announced on the graduation day. Keep in mind that West Point wasn’t your everyday university org, but the institution of fighting conceived by George Washington himself. We’re talking about soldiers here, and soldiers of the top pick. Smart, enterprising, risk grabbers, in whom that early life force had an almost sacred knack for smashing restraints, any restraints, especially after beverage.
But properly formed it would become a great premium on the battlefields. Liking the goats by the cadets was an indirect way of glorifying these raw values within all of them. A “demerit” lodged not far from a badge of honor in their untamed hearts. No wonder that many West Point goats went on to become generals, and even more national heroes. Does General George Pickett ring a bell? You can clank that bell for a while.
But just the other day I read that the West Point goat ritual has been scratched from the official roster and relegated to the retro rank. The provided reason was that the cadets should compete with the school’s high academic standard, not with each other.
Yeah, and I have a Brooklyn Bridge nobody wants to buy.
The doyens just didn’t want to get themselves into a situation — as they undoubtedly would — when eight times out of 10 it would be “diversity” who was the goat, and not necessarily for the reasons detailed above.
Yep, and so our tackle with non-American America begins.
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