Alex Opryszko 1-23-12 Paper 1 Word Count: 512 Deeds Not Words

When I woke up that morning it was the start to a regular day. For a freshman in the Corps of Cadets, and especially in the Marching Band the Highty-Tighties, a regular day is already painful; we wake up at 0500 to go to an hour of Physical Training, shower, iron our uniform for the day, shine our shoes and brass belt buckle, and proceed out into the hallway of the dorm to be inspected by our Company s Upperclassmen. After forming up on what is known as the VT, outside of Lane Hall, and raising the flag, we head back to our rooms in order to make them spotless before 0800, the time when your chain of command can inspect your room. My classes for that day speed by as they usually did, relieved as I always was to have the pressures of the Corps momentarily lifted. After my last class finished it was time for band practice at 1645. In order to have everyone be on time for practice, my Bud Class met 10 minutes early and took the accountability of all 37 of us. In the Corps of Cadets, a Bud Class is the group of freshmen which all go through freshmen-year training in the same company, and during that first year, they succeed or fail together and must learn to trust and help each other if they are to continue. For the other 10 Line companies, not including the Band, these Bud Classes are then split up at the beginning of sophomore year between every company, so that they have to learn the history and traditions of their company all over again. The Band however, does not take part in the Sophomore Shuffle, and my Bud Class will be with me throughout my college career. Soon enough the 10 minute had passed and it was time for band Practice. The Highty-Tighties pride themselves on being an extremely disciplined military marching band, and close enough was never acceptable for freshmen and upperclassmen alike. As the Drum Major, Cadet Captain Tyler Williams, constantly drilled into our minds, Strive for perfection, settle for

Alex Opryszko 1-23-12 Paper 1 Word Count: 512 excellence. This particular day though, nothing my bud class did was satisfactory for the band staff. After marching for 15 minutes the Drum major called a halt, and summoned the section leaders, who led each instrument s band members, over to him. When they returned, each freshman was made to stand at attention, braced up, while being criticized for each and every thing that the staff could find reason to yell about. Mr. Opryszko! Why are your shoes not shined properly? Look at my shoes, do you see the difference? Next practice I want to see your shoes better shined then mine! Before I knew what was happening I had the cymbals section leader, Cadet Corporal Tony Forlini, directly in front of me and he was giving me a harsher lecture than I had ever heard him give before, enumerating the problems on my apparently poor uniform as loudly as he could. We started to march again, but only got through 10 minutes before Cadet Captain Williams turned away in disgust, horrified at our miserable performance. As the practice went on longer and the criticisms of our work grew harsher, each one of us was starting to collapse under the pressure. My Bud Class knew that our first home football game of the season was drawing close, and we all knew that if the band was not pleased with how we played or marched that we would not perform during that long-awaited first game. We started to grow nervous; what if the band decided that we were not good enough? What if dropped us from the company? The Highty-Tighties were a band with an unparalleled history, having been founded in 1893, received a white Presidential Citation chord for service in the Spanish-American War, become the retired champions of the Presidential inaugural parade in the 1960 s after they won 3 consecutive times previously, and having won 1st place in 129 out of 130 competitive parades that they have marched. As we were constantly reminded though, we were not Highty-Tighties yet, merely bandsmen. The Band is always watching, the upperclassmen warned us since the very first day of training, the Band is judging each and every freshman, studying them to make sure that they will be a benefit to this family.