Barracks Life

One of the most attractive aspects of coming to a modestly sized military academy is the amount of camaraderie that exists between the midshipmen. Walking down the passage ways, or "P" ways, people have music playing, there are those laughing about a particular class or just another midshipman. Even though classes are a step above normal college classes, and the regimental lifestyle adds a ridged ness to life, there are always ways to just sit back for five minutes and have a bit of fun. As a side note, because some normal college activities are limited, especially for the Plebes and underclassmen, midshipmen learn to find even the smallest events hilariously entertaining.

There is another event that takes place daily within the regiment that is the epitome of teamwork and camaraderie. The normally monotonous task of doing the laundry is compounded with the fact that in the company laundry rooms doing a complete load of your own laundry is virtually impossible. The procedure for doing your laundry is as follows: gather all miscellaneous clothing articles that have gradually started to smell like the wrestling room in O'Hara hall. If one can be located, load into an empty washing machine. If one can not be found, the teamwork portion of doing laundry comes into play. The transference of your laundry to the dryer by another midshipman happens all of the time, simply do to time constraints. What makes this job interesting is the wild assortment of clothes and undergarment encountered on these daily laundry excursions. Keep in mind, this being the military, everything is stenciled, making identifying the owner of the bright red boxers with yellow happy faces quite easy. So, what started out as a monotonous and frustrating task turns into not only a great teamwork building exercise.