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Spider D
In the Corps at A&M, every unit or
"outfit" has at least two names - its military
designation, such as Company A-2 or Squadron 12, and
its nickname, such as "Red Eye One" or "Heaven's
Eleven". Some outfits had a third name, assigned
by members of other outfits, such as "Titty Ten"
for "Titan Ten". Army Company D-1 was always
known as "Spider D".
In the Corps at A&M, every unit or
"outfit" had a reputation - some were focused
on sports, some on scholastics, some on social activities.
Spider D had a one-word reputation - gross.
When you heard about an outfit that succeeded
in getting a cow up eight flights of stairs onto the
fourth floor of a dorm, you didn't have to ask which
outfit it was - it was Spider D. When you heard about
a contest that featured everybody in the outfit spitting
into a glass, and then the "winner" chugging
it, again, you didn't have to ask which outfit it was.
The fish of every outfit in the Corps
wildcatted out to formation with the standard, "Aaaaaaayyy".
Every outfit, except one. Spider D fish wildcatted with
"Rangee, Rangee, Rangee". I don't pretend
to know why.
Occasionally, the Spiders decided to "mark
their territory", and black, stencil-and-spray-paint
spiders appeared on sidewalks and benches all over the
campus.
The Coasters had a hit in the late 1950's
with "Charlie Brown". Remember "Who's
always writing on the walls, Who's always goofin' in
the halls, Who's always first to get caught?" That
could have been written about Spider-D.
The Trigon had the responsibility to make
sure that each unit in the quad reflected credit on
the Corps of Cadets and the University. Usually, the
bulls allowed
the Corps hierarchy to deal with discipline problems.
But when that failed, or when the problem was an entire
outfit, the Trigon took action directly. That action
usually was to disband the outfit, re-assigning the
members to multiple other outfits in the same service
branch, thereby reducing the number of misfits in one
outfit below the critical mass.
Spider D was disbanded at the end of our
pisshead year.
In an ironic postscript, Heaven's
Eleven, the outfit that won every major Corps award
during our 4 years as cadets, was disbanded several
years ago, and is not currently a Corps outfit. But
Spider D is.
John (Yankus) Yantis
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