Stealing our CO's Footlocker

One of the goals of the Corps at A&M is cohesion. Most of the events and activities at the start of the fall semester are aimed at bringing the fish class in each unit together as a unified group. The first major opportunity for the fish to demonstrate that they had achieved unity came a few weeks before Thanksgiving.

It was tradition that the fish in each outfit plan and execute an operation that required a great deal of cooperation and joint resolve - stealing their Commanding Officer's footlocker. The footlocker was a standard feature of each cadet's dorm room or hole. The contents of almost every other drawer and shelf in those rooms and holes was specified, as was befitting a military organization. But not the footlocker. Its contents weren't subject to inspection, and it could be kept locked. As a result, cadets kept essential and/or valuable items in their footlockers.

The details of the operation were up to the fish in each outfit. They could be as simple as a mass assault when the C.O. was relaxing in his room, a clandestine theft when he inadvertently left his room open and unguarded, or an event that involved kidnapping the C.O., transporting him some distance from the campus, and leaving him stranded (with or without clothing.) The theft could be limited to the footlocker, or could also include his saber, boots, girlfriend's picture, or other personal items.

The goal was for the fish to keep possession of the footlocker until the Thanksgiving-day football game with t.u., then return it with some ceremony. Of course, the C.O. was expected to retaliate, making life successively more miserable for the fish, testing their resolve to see the operation through. That retaliation could take the form of denying the fish use of items that the C.O. had also lost, or almost anything the C.O. could dream up. Graner remembers that our C.O., Rusty Boggess, stored his underwear and casual clothes in his footlocker - when we stole it, he no longer had access to those items. Thus, the only clothing we fish could wear for the duration was our uniforms, without underwear. Crapouts were common during this trial, as were requirements to speak to each upper classman "three deep" - that is, instead of just yelling, "Howdy, Mister Jones, Sir!", fish were to yell, "Howdy Mister Jones, Sir, from Smithville, Sir, taking Advanced Underwater Basketry, Sir!" as appropriate to each upper classman in the outfit. Any failure to get all three items correct resulted in some kind of physical punishment. Another retaliation involved denying us use of our mattresses, requiring us to sleep directly on the springs of the bunk beds in our holes.

The restoration of the footlocker to the C.O. traditionally was done with some ceremony. The one I remember most vividly was an outfit that deposited a footlocker at the center of Kyle Field at halftime of the Thanksgiving-day game, right after the bands left the field.

I don't remember the details of when we stole Rusty's footlocker, or when we returned it. I hope that one or more of our buds does, and will add their memories here.

John (Yankus) Yantis