The Citadel Man

I'm not sure why I went there.

The Citadel.

I think it was a combination of things, reasons—some vague, all somewhat silly, and none, by themselves, substantial enough to fortify such a momentous decision:

1. My cousin Jimmy had gone there.
2. Uncles and other cousins had and were attending.
3. Everybody in my family thought it was a terrific school.
4. A number of my good friends were going to enroll.
5. My girlfriend thought it was a neat idea.

Did I want to go there?

I don't think I gave it much thought.

Anyway, there I was, sitting in the barber's chair in Mark Clark Hall in the late summer of 1958 getting my head mowed to military standards. Needless to say, this new lifestyle required a radical adjustment on my part. Being an only child and being raised by a mother and grandmother, whose parenting methods were somewhat permissive, my only brush with anything resembling discipline had been playing high school football. That had not been sufficient to prepare me for The Citadel.
First of all, a person with low self-esteem is not a suitable Citadel candidate. The process of becoming a cadet during your freshman years strips away torso-sized chunks of your self-esteem, so if you have very little to being with, two things will happen to you, neither of which will be good.

You'll become an emotional wreck and be kicked out or quit. Or you'll suffer the indignities, pain an humiliation—driven by the thought that you, yourself, will someday attain the lofty status of upperclassman and eventually the rank of officer, only to replenish your near-emptied tank of self worth by doing unto future freshman what was done unto you.

I guess the first scenario would be the less disastrous. You'll spend a little time in therapy, but you probably needed to anyway.

However, the second scenario, in which you are transformed into what the cadets call a "military dick," is the one to which the awful aspect of permanence is affixed. You become a one-dimensional, mean-spirited, acrimonious, humorless, trifling, boorish Napoleonic figure whose every waking moment is devoted to harassing, if possible, torturing, and debasing freshmen cadets. Your entire value system is predicated on shoes with a quarter-inch of shoe polish, glistening, unscratched brass, lint-free field caps, skin-tight shirt tucks and clean, perfectly oiled rifles. In brief, these guys case lots of trouble and everybody hates them.

Fortunately for society, most of these obnoxious people enter the armed services, where they are usually killed by friendly fire either in combat or sometimes during boot camp.

Based on my family's overestimation of my abilities, I had normal self-esteem and suffered no permanent psychological trauma. Oh sure, I was chewed out and berated by the "dicks" and some of the more emotionally well-adjusted officers, but so were all of the other "knobs," "dumbheads" and "squats." (There were some of the printable names they called freshmen.)

Some guys were harassed more than others and you could always tell just by looking at them if they were going to be prime targets. Frequently, it was the sort of nerdy looking guys, especially the pudgy ones.

Sadly, many of these kids are sent to The Citadel by misguided fathers who feel the school will make "men" of their sons. More often than not, these poor souls end up quitting after a few weeks. My first two roommates were such people. The first, John Brown, lasted two weeks. I was sorry. He was a husky, not bad looking guy with blonde hair, but he had a complete disregard for personal hygiene. Our room began to take on odor similar to the monkey cage at old Hampton Park. John, it seemed, never bathed or brushed his teeth, which were of a brownish yellow hue, and also had a serious bed-wetting problem that was as personally threatening as it was offensive, being that he occupied the top bunk. Naturally, John was completely unable to adjust to the strict code of military fastidiousness, and was raked over the coals by practically every upper-classman in the barrack for his gross appearance.

A few days after John's departure—though he was still "with" me for at least a week—Dave Berenson moved in. I wondered how he'd lasted this long. H was just the kind of oddball that upperclassmen feasted on. He was about 5'9" with a little waist and extremely wide shoulders. He had thin hair, so his crew cut made him look almost bald. He spoke through his nose, had Dopey-sized ears, and eyes that had that vacuous Dan Quayle look. His shoes seemed much too big for him which gave him a slightly clownish air. His pants were too long and bunched up around his waist, so he could never hold a shirt tuck.

Dave was like a live cartoon character. And I guess because Dave's shoulders were so big, Gold felt he could carry one more burden, so he made him a Yankee with a heavy New York accent and laced him at a school where in 1958, 80 percent of the students were Southerners still incensed about losing the Civil War. He stuck it out almost to Christmas. I think the upperclassmen—the sadistic ones anyway—hated to see him leave. They would scream at home till the veins in their temples seemed near bursting. All poor Dave could do was stare cavantly ahead and answer in his strange little cartoon character voice: "Yes, sir," "No, sir," or "No excuse, sir."

Dave's departure was a given the day he forgot to open the glass door to Mark Clark Hall before through it. He spent a while in the infirmary, which gave him time to clear his head and make the rational decision to get the hell out of there. And he did.

My next roommate, Don Hinson, made a relatively uneventful adjustment to the school, which had some disadvantages for me, since in comparison to my first two roommates, even I was considered military sharp.

My first six to eight weeks were grueling, as I was frequently given demerits for "lint on cap," "improper shoe shine," "improper shirt tuck," "tarnished brass" and so on. I walked enough "tours" (marching with your rifle back and forth on the quadrangle for hours) to lose about 20 pounds. A serendipitous even occurred when I met another freshman, James Sumners, who had been in the Marine Reserves. He taught me how to do correctly all the little military requisites at which I had been failing so miserable. Within weeks, I learned how to receive, maintain, as well as give magnificent shirt tucks. Frankly, James gave better shirt tucks than I did, and other freshmen were always asking him for one. He probably could have charged for them. It would have been well worth it. I think an enterprising young cadet could still supplement his education this way although in the 90s it maybe too risqué, a double entendre to be known at The Citadel as a guy who "gives good tuck."

But this was the 50s and with James's help, I became one of the "top knobs" in the company. I mean, after all, this was quite easy, I soon figured out. Shining shoes, polishing brass, having a skin tight shirt tuck, learning the manual of arms, marching. How much intellect did this take? I became obsessed. Some upperclassmen even complimented me now. I made the freshman drill team.

On the other hand, that aspect of college that requires mental skill completely escaped my attention. When I should have been studying, I was polishing and shining. When I did open a book it was only because there was a test the next day I was an academic zombie. When I received my first semester report, I was not only shocked at the abysmal state of my grades, but at the fact that I was receiving my grades in January. I didn't even realize the college year was divided into two semesters, not that it would have mattered. Once I discovered how to interpret grade point ratios, my plight seemed even worse. My God, I thought to myself, they want you to be both a military and an academic genius at this ridiculous school. It was certainly easier to do the former, so I decided to aim my efforts in that direction and sort of do like I did when I was in high school—give the least scholastic effort possible to maintain a passing average. This was to prove very difficult for a person whose idea of a study habit was biting his nails while reading. I continued my maximal military/minimal academic plan of action into the second semester.

Despite my becoming a "squared-away squat," I was still treated with contempt and complete disrespect by some upperclassmen, and there was always an ambitious junior corporal (this was the highest rank a junior could obtain) lurking around somewhere to scream, "Halt, dumbhead, where do you think you're going with your chin sticking out like that? Rack that chin in! Pull your shoulders back!" The junior squad leaders were, perhaps, the most oppressive of all the upperclassmen, because they were constantly bucking for rank. If they had a John Brown or Dave Berenson on their squads, their chances for promotion to officer could be jeopardized.

But even their bilious antics did not impress me as much as the senior officers. For some reason, these guys looked like grizzled war veterans, although, at the most, they were but 22 years old, four years above myself. They had 4 o'clock shadows at 10 a.m. They strode through the barracks with unmitigated self-assurance. They had made rank. There was no one left to impress. Some of them looked like figures out of war movies and comic books I'd seen 10 years earlier. There was our company commander, Jim Ridgeway. He had one of those rotund, powerful voices that all company commanders should have; and his heavy drawl seemed more like that of a Confederate officer. Our platoon leader, Tom Clark, when dressed in fatigues, looked exactly like one of those bedraggled bearded, slouch-shouldered soldiers in "The Sands of Iwo Jima." Neither one of them seemed thrilled about chastising freshman, and only did it when it was blatantly necessary. The general impression was that this was their last year. The ranting and raving at freshmen had been delegated to others.

There was one salient exception to this rule—our first sergeant, Stan Robinski. The guy was the prototype first sergeant—a tough, irritable, bellicose, by-the-book tyrant, who only smiled when he would read pain in the eyes of his quarry. When the sergeant stopped you, even though you kept saying to yourself, "This is not a serious situation. This is a military school and what he's doing is just part of the process…Mommy!" He would get about one inch from your face, glare at you with hot ingot eyes, as though, if the school allowed, he would pull a pistol from his side holster and blow a hole through your skull to preserve the integrity of the corps. Even without the tirade that always followed, he was intimidating just to look at.

The first time I encountered him was as I was running down the stairwell (required of freshmen), I quickly gave a salute: "Good morning, Sgt. Robinski, sir."

"Hold it, idiot!" He stared contemptuously at me. "You don't salute a non-commissioned officer. Do you understand (screaming one inch from my face), Mr. Cos—(trying to pronounce my name)? What's your name, Mister pop off?"

"My name is cadet recruit Coskrey, W.R., sir." I shot back, successfully avoiding a stammer, but not a very blatant voice crack on "sir."

He leaned around to my left ear and screamed so loudly into it, I knew my eardrum must have burst: "If I catch you saluting me again, maggot breath, your ass is mine. Do you hear me, Mr. Coskrey!!!???"

I thought to myself, "No, I don't hear you Sgt Markoff, especially since I am now permanently deaf in one ear." But not being a total idiot, I answered, "Yes sir, Sgt. Mar—Robinski, sir."

"You better get my name right, too, Mr. Coskrey. Now get the hell out of here," he shouted as he watched me run down the stairwell and march away, accidentally bumping into a metal trash can in my haste. I think Sgt. Robinski was personally responsible for at least a dozen freshmen not finishing the year.

If you're wondering whether we freshmen ever got a break, we did, and it came in the form of the senior privates. They were the Hawkeye Pierce types. They couldn't have cared less about the military system, coming to formation sipping up their patns, tucking in their shirts, wearing scuffed-up shoes and selling donuts, ice cream and Playboy magazines in the barracks lat at night. The selling was, of course, against regulations, but somehow, they managed to get away with it.

They got their occasional demerits—usually from the army tactical officers—but the cadet officers seemed to look the other way. These people, assuming they were just as intractable in their freshmen year, must have really gone through hell, so I guess the cadet officers felt it would be cruel and unusual punishment to persecute them again.

Whenever a senior private stopped you, you could relax. In fact, that's what they'd tell you, "Relax, Mr. Coskrey. At ease." But they were not usually doing this out of humanity, they always had an angle. Either they were selling something, or in my case, since I was a local boy, they would want me to get them a date or at least introduce them to some prospects, usually at the Tea Dance, where Charleston girls unknowingly risked soiling their reputations by socializing with some of the horniest men in existence. Once these guys got on the subject of females, the conversation quickly degenerated into the most libidinous details of what they fantasized a certain girl at the Tea Dance would be like if some kind of miracle would allow them to "get lucky" for once.

My only unpleasant experience with a senior private was with Chris Matthews. I knew him because we had gone to the same high school, but not well, since he was four years older. Christ was a big guy, about 220 pounds or so—of fat. He was no athlete. One day at mess, he asked me and another freshman, Robert Hanley, to make him a peanut butter sandwich and bring it up to his roon. He said he wouldn't be there, so we should just leave it on his table. Robert and I, instead of just doing what we were told, decided (a little irrationally) that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for freshmen to take revenge on an upperclassman. We decided to make Chris a peanut butter sandwich that would last him several days, despite his apparently abnormal appetite.

We used two jars of peanut butter and had to use four slices of bread to keep the contents from breaking through. I guess the sandwich weighed a couple of pounds. We put it in a paper bag and left it on Chris's table, as ordered. I guess we plebes were as stupid as the upperclassmen said we were because this was certainly a very stupid plan. I mean Christ had to only look at the sandwich to see that it was not your regular 6-ounce peanut butter variety. Did we really think he was going to start munching right into it, then get halfway through and start choking before he realized he was attempting to ingest 2 pounds of peanut butter? Maybe we did.

I think all freshmen at The Citadel undergo bouts of temporary insanity. It's a sort of coping mechanism.

Anyway, a couple of hours later, Christ burst through the door, but not the friendly, pudgy Chris who was a former high school mate. No, this was Chris, the enraged 220-pound senior private, who was transformed:

"Get your asses to attention, when an upperclassman enters your room, dumbheads!"

Both Robert and I jumped up from the study table simultaneously, each of us glancing at one another from the sides of our eyes.

Chris: "What are you two fairies looking at each other for?" I brought you two wise asses a present, this 10-pound peanut butter sandwich you made for me. I've decided to go on a diet, but I remembered how thin and emaciated you poor guys looked, so I want you to eat the sandwich. Actually, I don't want to be unfair, so I made another 10-pound sandwich, so that you can both have one. Now I'm very concerned about you boys, so do make sure you eat them. I'm going to stay right here till you both finish. Here (screaming) eat them now."

We opened the sandwiches and started eating.

Chris: "Faster, we'll be forming to go to dinner in 20 minutes. I want those sandwiches to disappear in 10 minutes."

Me: "Sir, can we get some water, sir?"

Chris: "Hell no, you've got nine minutes."

Robert and I finished our sandwiches.

It wasn't until three days later that our bowels functioned again. It wasn't until 1978 that I ate peanut butter again. In late spring, we had our company party at The Citadel Beach House. That's where the freshmen were "recognized" by the upperclassmen (an acknowledgement that the freshmen had successfully completed the plebe system). There was a lot of handshaking, beer drinking and a number of fist-fights between junior corporals and vindictive freshmen. Chris, Robert and I laughed over the peanut butter sandwiches. Robinski got knee walking drunk and completely blew his image. I suffered the not unexpected indignity of being placed on academic probation and never resumed my studies.

I have my memories. I have the life skills I learned that year at The Citadel which serve me to this day. Without a doubt, I have the best shirt tuck in my office.

Last Call

March 1999
Last Call
By Bob Coskrey

It was an unseasonably balmy day in New York City last November 24th, as my wife, Barbara, and I sat in the Stage Delicatessen with “M” and “L,” * two of our oldest and best friends. I have known “M” (the husband) since about 1960, before he had met “L” and before I had met Barbara, even “M” is that special category of old friend, not someone I had played basketball or football with, or shared bouts of pre-test anxiety, or even hormonally bonded moments of libidinous leering into Ashley Hall dormitories from its on-campus cave.** “M” had earned that special beer bottle shaped asterisk next to his name. He had served—and served honorably—with me in the Budweiser Brigade, the Remy Martin Regiment, the Absolute Army. “M” is that particular pal, that charter member cohort, that prototypical and proverbial accomplished accomplice—the Drinking Buddy.

And not just a run-of-the-mill, everyday variety. We had shared tragedy, ecstasy, humiliation, hilarity, terror, boredom, and ennui, even a jail cell (sometimes all in one day), but additionally, and just as important, “M” had provided me with years of non-stop, over-the-top, uncensored, free entertainment, because he would always do and say things, most so outrageous that I, as “disgusting” a writer as I am, won’t even be able to repeat here. I will only say that alcohol was always involved, girls usually, clothes occasionally, and inhibition never. In fact, his lack of inhibition and propensity for saying what others only dare to think, remind me of none other than the present day “King of all Media,” as well as all that is vile and immoral, and this similarity in personality is certainly one reason why I am a Howard Stern fan.

New York is my favorite place to visit, with its thousands of terrific restaurants, theatre, nightlife, museums, history, and just plain non-stop excitement, so the idea of my wife and I spending five days there with “M” and his wife had kept me revved up for the moment like a kid counting down the days to his first trip to Disney World.

“L” and Barbara would browse around the stores on 5th Avenue pretending they could afford to buy things, while “M” and I would move from bar to bar like well-buzzed honey bees sampling the mood altering nectar of each. By the time we were all ready to go out for the evening, “M” would be in peak performance condition, and it would not simply be a night of entertainment, but I would have tons of material to draw from. Who knows, maybe even a novel would emerge from this meeting of New York and “M.” There might even be a movie similar to those Dracula or Abbott and Costello, Tarzan, or Ernest in New York (I didn’t see that one, of course): “M Swills Manhattan,” or “M Tells Big Apple to ‘Bite Me’.”

And so not only lunch but launch time had arrived and we all sat at the table and prepared to fuel up for blast off:

L: Heineken.
Barbara: Miller Lite.
Me (stuttering in nerve tingling anticipation): A…A..Huh…Heineken.

The tension built in my chest, as my heart palpitated faster, and I tried to appear nonchalant reading the upside down menu.

I looked up at the waiter and I thought I saw that nefarious glint take hold, as he kicked off the opening ceremonies of the New York Swingathon 1998 with the words: “I’ll have a water, please.”

I looked around for Allen Funt or Rod Serling. I thought about running outside to see if the sun was setting in the East. All is chaos, the world is in disorder, cares would be driving on the sidewalk, the Central Park horses would be riding in their own carriages pulled by blubbery tourists, and Jesse Helms and Ben Vereen would be dating publicly.

Apparently unaware of my demented state, “M” let the other shoe drop.

M: Yeah, I haven’t had a drink in two weeks. I had a physical and I’ve got borderline liver problems. I’ve even joined A.A. I feel great.
Me (thinking): Well, I don’t! I’ve been looking forward to this for six months. This is like taking Christie Brinkley back to your apartment and somehow she turns out to be David. And couldn’t you have waited a few more weeks? What a liver among friends? You just get another one and then you can drink even more.

Ashamed of the selfishness of my thoughts, I managed to utter a, no doubt, unconvincing “Great, great.”

Mixed feelings? Osterized is more like it. On the one hand, I was, of course, happy that one of my oldest and dearest friends had taken a monumental step in his life and seemed sincerely happy about it, but at the same time, I was profoundly disappointed that I would not have a first class ticket on the “Mr. M’s Wild Ride Through Manhattan,” and that tradition would now compel me to cross out the beer bottle shaped asterisk next to his name.

Even more depressing was the gradual realization that of my original list of drinking buddies, there was now but one left and he lived two states away. Over the years, two had stopped drinking, one had died, and another had unofficially resigned in protest of my, making him pay for damage to a window he had stumbled into.

And so here I am at a crossroads. Do I really even need a drinking buddy at the age of 59? For the past 15 years, with all of them living out of state I only saw them a grand total of maybe four times a year anyway. But all guys, no matter how geeky, are supposed to have a drinking buddy, so how can I look in the mirror and call myself a man without one?

Could I go to a bar and recruit? I don’t think so. Sounds a little gay.
Thinking: Me (sipping a beer in a downtown bar): Excuse me, but I’m looking for a drinking buddy. Can I buy you a beer?
Man (Look of disgust on his face): Get away from me, you old queen.
Me: You misunderstand. I’m as hetero as you can get. I’ve got a V-chip in my TV that permanently blocks out the Lifetime Channel. I once removed my own tonsils rather than paying a high deductable. Sometimes, during cold spells, I go running without shoes, or pants either for that matter.
Man: Get away from me, you creep!
Bartender: Hit the road, Jack, we don’t want your kind in here.
Obviously that approach won’t work, so with Bill Macchio’s permission, here goes:

Married, white, flagrantly heterosexual, 59 year old male seeks a male drinking buddy. Marital status, age, race or sexual orientation unimportant (though gays or bi’s should be forewarned—the relationship will never go beyond the dancing stage). Must have or appreciate cynical view toward people and life in general; should enjoy talking about sports, movies, books, current events, should enjoy talking about politics for its comedic value only; must be capable of saying and doing outrageous things for my vicarious enjoyment; extroverted “Howard Stern” like personality a plus; must be physically healthy; mental health unimportant as long as you’re not dangerous. Most important of all, must be willing to sign a contact stating that you will continue to function as my drinking buddy till only death do us part. Leaves of absence will be given for medical treatment for high blood pressure, pancreatitis, and liver transplants, if necessary.

Also, should be willing and able to travel to New York next November with me and my wife as proof of commitment.

Please write care of this magazine. Auditions (“wet runs”) will be given at Crawford’s Tavern in Mt. Pleasant.

Bottoms up!

*I am using initials only to protect the innocent and guilty alike.
**The school has (or had) a cave-like structure on its campus.