It’s a fresh spring day in Charleston, South Carolina. The birds are chirping, the pollen is painting everyone’s car yellow and The Citadel is preparing for one its biggest events of the spring semester: Corps Day. It’s a day where alumni of all ages and regions make a voluntary pilgrimage to visit their old, newly air-conditioned, closet-sized rooms and celebrate the birthday of our institution of higher learning. They come to reminisce in their time of former glory when they barked at the knobs and had high blood-pressure and six-pack abs instead of their round beer guts they acquired from drinking too many six-packs since they’ve graduated. (Hey, no judgement.) Oh, the memories.
On a typical day, our barracks keep their large black metal gates locked to the public. Almost any given day, a senile and/or pompous alumnus will try to enter the barracks when they’re open only to students and faculty. This usually ends with the students that are guarding the barracks being cursed at and being told, “This school was so much better in the old corps!” One time I had to tell a 30-year-old grad with his toddler son from entering. He said to me, “Huh. It’s funny how I spend all this money trying to keep this place open and they won’t even let me in.” Maybe the rejection from the school is what’s fueling our esteemed graduates’ craving for visiting their rooms and the ceremonies they dreaded while they were students.
A lot of students here compare The Citadel to a prison. Cadets don’t have the option to leave whenever they want and the school demands to know your whereabouts at all times like Big Brother from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Because of this, our “towering bulwark of rigid discipline” is often referenced by students and grads as a “Maximum Security College.” I believe that as valid as that argument is, I would compare the school to a different caged entity: a zoo.
Why a zoo? It’s because the school and its cadets are a public attraction to the city. Charleston, South Carolina, has been consistently internationally ranked as one of the best places to visit. A vast majority of the city’s revenue come from tourists hailing from regions as far away as China and as close as Summerville. The school is contracted with the city to enforce cadets to wear their 1800s-style uniforms when they do decide to let the animals out of their cages and out on the town. Charleston has a rich history and uses the tourism business to capitalize on it. Apparently nothing screams history more than making 18 to 22 year-olds wear a uniform that looks like you’re about to fight the Union. It’s very common to see tourists riding around in their choice of horse-drawn carriage or charter bus taking pictures of cadets just walking around. I suppose the sightseers equate our dated uniforms with the eccentric patterns of the birds-of-paradise. The city and school also make us have a parade on our school grounds every Friday while school is in session. The civilians act like they’ve never seen anything like it. For a cadet, a parade is more like a circus. We march out in the blazing Carolina heat while being hit with a barrage of finger pointing, camera clicks, and the awe induced “oohhs,” and “aahhs,” from the bizarrely dazzled spectators. I still can’t figure out why walking around in lines wearing wool garments in 85 degree weather is so fascinating. It’s miserable!
The noises from our esteemed wildlife refuge are another thing our visitors tend to gawk at. The barracks and academic buildings are grey and designed like fortresses that enclose our exotic beasts. The entire campus is grey, with the exception of the giant green square field that the campus revolves around. The creatures of the corps form up at least twice a day in their enclosures to listen to whatever announcements that must be addressed.
Since campus life is much more restricted than that of a normal college student, cadets at The Citadel get excited about some of the most mundane things. For instance, any time the school's president has to make an announcement, the corps of cadets just loses it. We love General Rosa or General “BROsa” as we often call him between our fellow students. He was the school’s quarterback back when he attended and then became an officer in the Air Force. He’s a suave yet impeccably professional leader that every cadet strives to be like. General Rosa could say that we’re all being sentenced to prison for life and the students would still erupt in cheer and applause.
On the other hand, we have our zookeeper: Captain Paluso, Commandant of the Corps of Cadets. Ole Captain “P” is in charge of our operations as a corps and disciplinary action. Needless to say, some people view him as a villain. Captain Paluso was a Naval officer and a Navy SEAL, so this guy doesn’t take any of our crap. Captain Paluso is also a pretty cool guy in his own humble way; he just has the burden of being the bearer of bad news. When our zookeeper makes an announcement to us, it’s usually accompanied by a low tone of “Ooooooooo.” It’s dead silent when he’s speaking and depending on what he says, it stays silent until we gripe and bang our metal trash bins around about whatever it was in our barracks. To put it simply, we sound like Planet of the Apes after someone we think is important makes a statement.
The irony of it all is that even though I often find myself feeling like a caged bird, I’m still proud that I came to this school. Sure the selfies drunk vacationers make me take with them get annoying, and sure the sheer thrill they get when we walk out in our uncomfortable uniforms still confuses me, but I’m happy I chose to come here. When I do finally graduate and leave my cage for the freedom of the world beyond the iron gates, I’ll probably be that old senile alumnus cursing the school for preventing me from reliving my glory as an animal at The Citadel: The Military Zoo of South Carolina.
