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Whistle Jock
The culture in the Corps at A&M dictated
that a cadet serve his outfit and its members for an
academic year, then receive increasing amounts of service
for the next three. Under the category of serving the
outfit, the fish class was responsible for several "details"
or duties. One of these details was Whistle Jock.
Every weekday morning, and the evenings
of Monday through Thursday, the Corps formed up (gathered
in a military formation) in the quad, gave report, and
marched to Duncan for chow. Often on weekends, there
were Corps and outfit events that required cadets to
form up. Each of these events occurred at a specific
time, and stragglers usually received some form of punishment
(demerit slips). Thus, there was a need for an outfit
"alarm clock" that would notify all members
of an impending formation. That "alarm clock"
was called Whistle Jock.
The job of Whistle Jock was rotated among
the fish in an outfit, such that each week there was
a different fish assigned the duty. It was up to the
fish class to develop that duty roster, and to ensure
that the job got done. If a fish had a conflict on a
day he was scheduled to be Whistle Jock, he could trade
off with another fish, but the duty had to be performed
or the entire fish class would suffer the consequences.
The Whistle Jock had to consult the outfit duty roster
to see what Zip and Sergebutt had responsibilities that
day, the First Sergeant to determine the uniform appropriate
for the occasion, and the Duncan Dining Hall weekly
menu to get the main entrée for the upcoming
meal.
I don't know of an outfit that doesn't
actually require the Whistle Jock to use a police-type
whistle, although some outfits add other standard equipment
(such as a football helmet for Squadron 17 during the
2000-2003 school years). At 30 minutes prior to a scheduled
formation, the Whistle Jock made his first call (cleverly
known as "First Call"). He would usually start
at one end of the hall, "hit the wall", blow
the whistle as loud and long as he could, and make his
announcement in the loudest possible voice. For example,
for a morning chow, he would say, "Heaven's Eleven.
First call for chow. Fall out for chow in 30 minutes.
Uniform of the day is Class B Summer. Officer of the
Day is Mr. Smith, Sir. Junior Call to Quarters is Mr.
Jones, Sir. For chow we are having cackle,
bullneck,
and battery acid."
Next, he would hustle down to the middle of the hall,
hit the wall, blow the whistle, and repeat the announcement.
In turn, he would hustle to the far end of that hall,
repeating the performance, and then, if the outfit occupied
another floor, he would start all over again on that
floor.
This entire performance was repeated in
15 minutes, when it was time for "Second Call",
and then again 5 minutes before formation time, when
it was "Last Call".
It wasn't unusual for there to be three
outfits housed in one dorm, so the noise of three whistle
jocks was usually sufficient to ensure that all cadets
received adequate advance information of each required
formation. If you opened your window, you could usually
hear the whistle jocks from at least a couple of other
dorms.
Occasionally, a white belt would decide
to modify the whistle jock's announcement. Such modifications
included fart-offs to the O.D. or JCQ, or novel descriptions
of the main entrée (such as "yellow death"
for "scrambled cackle", or "chicken titties"
for the chicken croquets that were composed of pureed
chicken parts formed into cones, breaded, and fried).
I remember that the first fish from
our class to be Whistle Jock was John (JT) Foote.
John Yantis (Yankus)
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