Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [36]
The Code of Conduct, established by President Eisenhower in 1955, was considered vital because during the Korean War, American POWs had been forced through torture to collaborate. The term in those days was that they’d been “brainwashed.” And so the military came up with specific rules of conduct, and we were expected to memorize them all. As future officers, for instance, we had to vow: “I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have means to resist.” We could surrender only in the face of “certain death.” We had to repeat key lines from the code: “If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.”
Mealtime became increasingly stressful because the upperclassmen were relentless in their demands. We had to memorize the details about a great number of airplanes. We were expected to know foreign policy, American and world history, and sports scores from the day before. We had to be able to rattle off the full names of all the upperclassmen at the table, including their middle initials, and their hometowns. Now, forty years later, many of those names and middle initials remain seared into my head. I remember the hometowns, too.
The degree of harassment awaiting you at mealtime depended on your daily table assignment. Walking into the dining hall, if you saw you were seated with a kindhearted senior, you were relieved. But if one of the seniors sitting at your table was a notorious hard-ass, your heart would sink. You knew dinner would be excruciating.
In that case, you hoped for one of two things: Either another freshman cadet at your table would be so pathetically hopeless at memorization that the upperclassmen would focus on him, which meant they’d leave you alone and you could eat. Or else you hoped that one of your freshman tablemates was a genius or had a photographic memory—someone who got everything right. When upperclassmen came upon a know-it-all, they’d focus all their energies on stumping him, finding the one question he couldn’t answer, and then giving him hell for his wrong response. When that happened, the rest of us were ignored and got to eat.
THERE WAS one upperclassman, a year older than I was, who wasn’t vindictive about his hazing. But he knew exactly how to make his point.
One day, we were getting ready to march to the noon meal. It was a warm morning and we were in short sleeves. I was standing at attention, and he came up to me, asking if I thought I’d done a good job polishing my black uniform shoes.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“How confident are you?” he asked.
“Sir, I am very confident,” I answered. (I wasn’t allowed to say: “I’m very confident.” I had to say “I am.” Freshmen were prohibited from using contractions.)
This upperclassman decided to make this into a challenge. “Are you willing to match shines?” he asked. My shoes versus his.
“Yes, sir.”
He defined our rules of engagement: “If you are confident that you have a better shine than I do, and it turns out you are right, then I will make your bed tomorrow. If my shoes have a better shine, then you’ll make my bed as well as your own.”
All of us, including the upperclassmen, had to make our own beds using hospital corners. We had to pull our sheets and blankets tight enough so they wouldn’t show any wrinkles. The test was to drop a quarter on the bed. If the quarter didn’t bounce, we’d have to pull off all the bedding and start again. It was no fun. So if this upperclassman made my bed the next day, it would be wonderful.
He gave me permission to stop looking straight ahead, and to look down at my shoes and then at his. Our shoes seemed equally shiny. But I chose to be bold. “Sir, I win,” I told him.
“Well, it’s pretty close,” he responded, “but we’re not finished yet. Let’s compare the soles of our shoes.”
He stood on one foot, allowing me to see his instep, the arched middle section between the heel and the ball of the shoe. The leather on each of his insteps had been