The German cadet: part 1, the arrival by thadeusz

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My name is Bernhard Reubart and I was born in Germany. My schoolmates and my father used to call me Berni. I speak of my father only because my mother, Magda, died of eclampsia while giving birth to her only child, me !

Because of that, my grandparents, my mother’s parents, refused to see me: they said that I killed my mother. They also refused to see or even speak with my father, Conrad Reubart. My father never knew his parents: he got named in an orphanage.

My father is an excellent engineer, inventing several elements for car engines and I wanted to be like him. When this story started, I was a 14 year old student. According to my teachers I was an excellent student, in advance for the usual program. Besides studying, I loved classic music, going to see a play in a theater and reading poems. I was in 10th grade and ready to take (and pass) the exam enabling me to go to 11th and 12th grade, and later to University in order to become also an engineer.

You have probably guessed that I lived with my father and that we took care of one another! As I came home earlier in the evening, I cooked the meal for my beloved father and he got my breakfast ready before I woke up. We lived in a small apartment, small but very comfortable where I was used to doing some cleaning every day. Luckily an old lady came every day to do the major part of the cleaning while I was studying and doing my homeworks. Daddy always came home late from his work.

I was rather anxious but he was very joyful and excited simultaneously: he explained that he now had a new possibility for a better job. He had been invited to become engineer for a great company in California, near Los Angeles. He told me:
"Berni, I will go for a three week test period to California. If they consider that I am really good, they will keep me with a much better salary."
"Father, what shall I do, alone during these three weeks ?"
"No fear Berni ! You will come with me and they will find a good school for you, not too far from the place where I will be."

The next day I started to gather the things I wanted to take with me, including my best clothes and all the school certificates I had from my teachers. At the end of the week we were both ready to leave Germany, at least temporary.

We left by plane on a Saturday and flew directly to Los Angeles. There two men were ready to help my father and one lady, who said she was called Linda, told my father and me that she had come to bring me to my provisional school. Linda, who spoke fluently my mother tongue, added rapidly in German:
"Berni, your new school has an excellent reputation but it is a boarding school. You will thus be dispensed of taking care of your father. Your main aim will be to study."
Then she added:
"We must hasten to go through customs: our plane towards that school is leaving in a few minutes."

I asked if I really had to leave my father so rapidly: remember that I was only 14. But Conrad, my father, reminded me that it was only for 3 weeks. So I kissed him rapidly, accepting thus to be separated from him so early but knowing, since he had repeated it in the plane and now in the airport, that it was only for a short time. I then followed Linda, my father’s provisional secretary.

So, I kissed my father, I got my suitcase and the rest of my kit and I followed, very excitedly, Linda towards another GATE. There we boarded a plane towards another city. Once we were in the plane, Linda told me that she had selected for me a three weeks stay in a typical American boarding school:
"This will enable you to keep studying, to get a good knowledge of English and also to learn how we live in the USA."
She then gave me a booklet describing that school, my future temporary school. That’s when I discovered that my future, and temporary, boarding school was in fact a military school based on the traditions of the US Marine Corps. I reacted immediately (in German):
"Linda, that’s impossible: I am a German citizen and I don’t like the military. You cannot force me to go there."
"I am not forcing you, I am simply leading you to an excellent school not too far from Los Angeles. In any case, it will only last for 3 weeks maximum. So, be quiet and follow my instructions: they have been approved by your father in any case."

I was only 14 years old and I decided to keep politely quiet: that’s what Father had told me as a correct behavior in case of doubt during a discussion with an adult. I must also confess that I was slightly anxious: I had never been alone, far from my father.

As soon as the plane had landed, Linda pushed me towards a taxi which then led us to a big building. There a guard in military uniform with many golden stripes on each sleeve received us. I later learned that it was a US Marine uniform and that this man was a Master Sergeant. Linda abandoned me to this guard who first took my suitcase and put it away while saying:
"My boy, as a cadet you won’t need this suitcase anymore."
"But sir, these are my only clothes. I must be able to change clothes."
"Later my boy."
And he pushed me towards another building with a long passage. I was told to go through this passage and thus reached a room labeled "BARBER".

The guard who was leading me, kindly I must admit, pushed me inside this room and told me to sit on what was obviously a barber chair. Another man, also in uniform but with less stripes on his sleeves, started to examine my hair. I later learned that he was an ordinary SGT. I had long fair hair falling on my shoulders and forming what my father and I considered as a nice dome. The SGT barber simply said:
"Not acceptable, much too long."
The guard who had led me to this place simply said:
"This boy is not a real cadet, only visiting here for three weeks."
The SGT barber reacted to these words by saying:
"This boy must still have a decent haircut."
He then pushed me rather brutally on his chair, covered my shoulders with a green tissue covering my shoulders and my front and attached all that behind my neck. He then silently started to cut my long and beautiful mane. He was an adult and I was only 14. Nevertheless, I told him, in my best English:
"My father loves my long hair."
"Boy, your hair must respect this Academy regulations."
I replied that my father and I loved long hair, but the Barber interrupted me saying: "You are not here to object to my decisions. You are here to be drilled and obey the orders. So keep quiet if you don’t want me to cut more."
After that he kept cutting my hair with scissors, reducing the mass in a way he liked more.
I thought he was done and started to move. But that was not the case. This SGT Barber pushed me rather brutally back in his chair and started to speak. He told me:
"Since you are here for a short period, I will give you a short buzz cut, but I will not make it too short since you are only here for three weeks."

This SGT Barber took clippers and placed a blue guard on it. He showed me the number on the guard: it was a 2. The Barber started then to organize what was left of my beautiful German mane in such a way that my hair formed a sort of dome, starting from the top of my head. He then brought his clippers to life and it buzzed noisily. The Barber let then his clippers run everywhere over my head in a way which appeared haphazard to me. In fact he was first creating a horizontal line at the level of my ears. He then started to move his clippers along that line, creating what I later discovered was a blank spot below it. A part of my head which was completely bald and deprived of hair! I wondered how I would look when I was back in my German school. Finally the SGT-Barber followed that line and moved upwards with his guard on the clippers, he was going from nape to top, on all sides of the head. It took him a certain time and he had to force me to turn my head the way he wanted, or to push it or pull it in his direction in order to be satisfied. He completed that with short passages of his clippers from front to top. He then turned my chair in order to let me have a look in his mirror.

I was horrified: my nice haircut had been reduced to a small bowl on top of my head and I hated that: I felt I looked ridiculous. The Barber and my SGT seemed to like it and anyway it was too late to protest. Both SGT ordered me to pass my hands on my head and I could feel that I was really bald below ear level and that my haircut was very short above that point. My Master Sergeant guide added:
"No need to use a hairbrush or a comb in the morning ! That’s great, isn’t it, my boy ?"


The Master Sergeant, who had remained present during this whole process, told me then:
"Stand up, we have more business to do."
I am not sure I understood what he meant since my knowledge of English was not excellent and also since I assumed that this whole "haircut process" was only meant to try to humiliate me because I was a German, son of other Germans who fought against the US during the last war. But the Master Sergeant had other ideas in mind.

This tall man, in an impeccable uniform, with a huge hat, took me by force by one arm and led me from the Barber office to another big room with "CLOTHING" on the entrance. There the Master Sergeant started to give me all sorts of pieces of clothing. I was first told to undress completely in order to put on khaki undies which were, according to the Master Sergeant: "Real Marine undies."

These undies consisted of what looked like khaki shorts without slit and a khaki top underwear, all that in cotton. After that came high woolen khaki socks, a greenish khaki t-shirt with a crew neck opening and a BDU, an army like uniform made in a solid but light cloth with a digital pattern on it. The uniform's components were combat boots, boot socks, camouflage utility trousers with a khaki web belt and a camouflage utility jacket. Finally came a sort of US Marine cap, with the US Marine emblem printed on the front. The Master Sergeant pushed briskly this cap on my shorn head. He also told me that I had to roll the sleeves of my vest according to a precise pattern which he showed me. He added: "For your uniform, everything has to be military precise"

After that, I received my new sports outfit: a red short, a yellow T-shirt both with the logo of this new school and -of course- white tennis shoes and white tennis socks.

I hoped it was finished now, but the Master Sergeant took me to a third room with the mention "SCHOOL EQUIPMENT". There I received notebooks with the label of the school: they were to be placed immediately in a school bag. This bag, provided with two shoulder straps, was meant to be worn on my shoulders. This school bag was also provided with the same school logo and name.

I had politely and obediently followed the Master Sergeant during this transformation process: after all I was only 14 and I did not understand why I needed all that stuff for my short three weeks stay.

The Master Sergeant led me then towards a nice building labeled: "B company". I was led to a room where I would live during my stay there. The Master Sergeant told me:
I was supposed to place my things, as a "cadet" in the cupboard and also how I was supposeThe Master Sergeant led me then towards a nice building labeled: "B company". I was led to a room where I would live during my stay there. The Master Sergeant told me:
"Here you will stay with another cadet, cadet Julian Lopez from Mexico. He is also in grade 10. He will help you with the details of what will be your first military stay."
And the Master Sergeant left the room leaving me alone.
And thus I learned that I was here in a "military stay" situation which I had not expected: I had learned in my mother country to dislike the Army.
I put my new and provisional clothes in an empty cupboard, in the order that I thought acceptable, and I started to wait. In my country, we say that soldiers have as a rule: "Wait and see." I started to wait.

Shortly later a real cadet came into this room. It was Julian Lopez, born in Mexico: he came with his parents to the US to learn English. He spoke English much better than I did. He helped me by telling me how to make my bed "in a military way". He was also 14 and we rapidly became friends.

I immediately discovered that my provisional "bed" was nothing else than a bunk with a pseudo mattress, a set of sheets and a red cover. With that there was a pseudo pillow, pseudo because it was very hard. I loved my own very soft bed with a soft pillow and a nice and warm quilt. After all, it was only for three weeks and I was 14, the age of nice experiments to be told later to my German friends.

In any case, Julian was very kind with me while giving me all these required explanations. Later he showed me the "military" way to go to the dining room and the "military" way to move inside this big hall. He showed me also how and when to keep quiet inside this big hall, how to move there and how to behave as "a good cadet" inside this hall. After dinner, another Master Sergeant appeared, Master Sergeant L.P. Jones. This Master Sergeant told me that he was going to explain to me what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to behave "Now that you are a cadet of this Academy, Cadet Reubart !"

Master Sergeant Jones told me to follow him on the main ground of the Academy and he taught me how to salute in a military way, how to march in step, how to turn when ordered to do so and many other movements which appeared essential to this Master Sergeant and which were clown moves for me, a good German student. Finally, Master Sergeant Jones let me go to my building where the other cadets were already busy with their evening study.

The next day I followed the same training as my new friend, Julian, my roommate: first washing my face, then ear and face inspection. This was followed by military exercises, and only after that a good breakfast followed by classes.

But before the first class, we were told to take the "pledge of allegiance". All the cadets, in duty uniform, stood up as if they were frozen, they placed their right hand in the correct "military" position and said in one voice the appropriate text. That is: all took the position of attention, right hand in the position of military salute and they placed their left arm at the side, hand against the thigh and the fingertips curled slightly inward. At first I tried to imitate them but I quickly realized that I, the German boy, was taking a sort of oath to the USA. Moreover this pledge made a reference to God, and like my father, I was an atheist. There was something wrong with that situation and I chose to discuss it with Julian later in our room.

After that we had classes, lunch, more classes, physical exercises, dinner and homework or lessons to learn once we were back in our housing groups (called "barracks"). I must admit that there were nice and well equipped study rooms for each group of 16 cadets.

At night, when we were alone in our little room, I asked Julian whether this "pledge of allegiance" did not create a problem for him, since he was a Mexican. Julian replied:
"No, should there be a problem ?"
"Well, you are taking a sort of oath to the flag of a foreign country."
"But that’s only words, it does not mean a thing for me. Moreover I want to become a US citizen."
I stopped discussing with him and started to think whether I could do that, me the German atheist.

Luckily, I was reminded of a trick we used in my German school when we wanted to cancel the effect of what we said. I would take this pledge but simultaneously, I would cross two fingers of my left hand in order to nullify the effect of my words.

The next morning I started that trick and I was happy for the rest of the day, despite the stupid uniform I had to wear. The day after I did it again, but Master Sergeant Jones, my direct supervisor, had seen this. He took me on the side and asked:
"Why are you doing this strange gesture with two of your fingers?"
"Well, Master Sergeant, I am not American and the American flag is not my flag and …"
The Master Sergeant interrupted me:
"And you want to nullify the effect of your words. I know that little trick, we used it when I was a boy. But for the time being, you are a cadet in a US Marine uniform. So either you behave as such, or I put you in the Institute brig, our prison, and that will not be comfortable. UNDERSTOOD cadet ?"
"Understood, Master Sergeant" was my sad reply.
I never tried again to use my little trick, but every morning, until I left this Academy, I made mental reservations to this "our pledge to the flag" business.

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