This was all at a time when military service and ROTC were in a decline across the country. Some colleges kicked ROTC off campus as a way of protesting the Vietnam War, and there were riots and protests across the country, often centering on college campuses. RPI was different. While there was one protest where the main administration building, the Pittsburgh Building, was taken over by students during the war, it was very brief and peaceful and was over almost before it started. In reality, engineering students are generally fairly conservative thinkers. Most of them were hoping to land a good paying job at an aerospace company or defense contractor when they got out! We were a pretty mercenary bunch. Certainly I never saw any issues with ROTC being unpopular when I was there.
From what I remembered the first time, ROTC had a fair number of students in it, but it was very low key. You almost never saw anybody in uniform. ROTC operated out of the Armory, which was also one of the gyms, and everybody stored their uniforms there. You would show up, dress, take your class, change, and leave. I was there on a four year scholarship, which meant I had to serve for four years active duty. The minimum was two years, but they only paid for junior and senior years then.
At the time, most of us were four years. We were just starting to come off of the Viet Nam War, and ROTC was filled with the biggest collection of draft dodgers you would ever want to meet! These guys all signed up in 1969 and 1970, when the war was at its ugliest. As long as they were in ROTC, they couldn’t be drafted and sent to Viet Nam! Furthermore, there were a couple of separate deals available. ROTC would only pay for one degree, but since Rensselaer had a program for a five year combined Bachelors/Masters in Engineering degree, a lot of the ROTC engineers got the Army to pay for that fifth year, so they could get the masters. Likewise, you could defer your service if you paid for grad school on your own. The ranks were full of grad students doing anything they could to avoid the military while there was a war on.
However, the theory went, sooner or later they would have to serve. But, luckily, the war was winding down by the time they became juniors and seniors. Further, they would graduate and be commissioned with multiple degrees. The thinking was that nobody was going to send these RPI geniuses to war; no, they would do desk duty in the States where nobody would shoot at them. It was incredibly cynical and mercenary, but it worked. By the time they graduated Viet Nam was over, and these guys had just gotten free high end college educations.
There were also some of us who knew we were going into the Army and didn’t plan to delay it. I wasn’t the only guy there with military tradition in the family. It’s like anything else. You get out of something what you put into it. You put the effort in; sooner or later you’ll be rewarded. I decided to make my time in uniform worthwhile. I knew the Army would respond. For one thing, you could get more training during the summer. At the time you took boot camp (I know, it was called something else, officially, but that’s what we called it) during your last two summers. However, if you wanted to, and your grades were good enough, and you were in for a four year scholarship, you could add to it by taking airborne school after your second summer. I knew a couple of guys who did that. Wally Miskowitz was really hard core, and ended up going Special Forces. One winter, during the January break, he even went on an Arctic survival course!
I wasn’t quite that crazy. I had spent fifty years in upstate New York. I was already an Arctic survivor. Still, what else was I going to do? Go back to the old homestead and move in with my brother again? Boot camp and jump school sounded a whole lot easier and a whole lot safer.
Chapter 24: Kappa Gamma Sigma
Despite my above average success with the ladies in junior high and high school, I saw very little action that first semester. Okay, to be honest — almost no action. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, because I certainly was. This was the longest dry spell in my life since I had lost my cherry for the second time with Shelley. However, I had several very large issues to deal with. The first was that as a freshman, my ranking on the social scale for the average girl ranked somewhere lower than whale shit. Even if I managed to hit up a girl at a Friday night dance at the Rat, when they learned I lived in the freshman dorms it was ‘see you later.’ Secondly, there were no girls to hit up. Like I said before, with a 14:1 ratio, the place was a total sausagefest.
Finally, there was my course load, which was heavy. After a few weeks of classes I knew two things. One, I was probably going to be able to accomplish my goal of a doctorate (or at least a masters) in four years, and Two, I was not going to be valedictorian again, although I should be able to at least be in the top half of my class this time. That first semester I was taking around 22 credits — Differential Equations, Finite Math, Linear Algebra, Basic Algorithms, and Computer Science I (each 4 credits) and Military Science I (2 credits). This was complicated by the fact that I’m a really good programmer, so I was already blowing through the programming course and my professor came to me to ask if I wanted to get both it and Computer Science II done in one semester. That would give me 26 credits, which some students only get in a year. At that rate, by the end of my freshman year, I was going to be a senior.
The only way I was going to have time for a girl was if one of them crawled under my desk and offered to give me a blowjob, and even then I’d still end up multitasking!
Still, I didn’t spend the entire time buried in books or the library. I actually enjoyed my time at Rensselaer the first go-around, and I saw no reason not to now. I was just going to be a hell of a lot smarter about it, starting with partying. It was one thing to party on weekends, but there was no excuse for me to get stupid drunk and stoned in the middle of the week. I think I really blew Buddy’s mind in that regard. I never said anything to him about his smoking dope, but I didn’t join in. Then, the Friday night of Labor Day weekend, he gave me his perfunctory “Want a toke?” question and I said yes. He watched in utter amazement as I expertly rolled a fat joint, lit it, and smoked a fair bit before handing it to him.
“I thought you didn’t smoke pot?” he asked.
“Not on school nights,” I replied.
“What’s the difference?”
I just laughed. If Buddy didn’t know, I wasn’t going to be able to teach him in the time remaining until he flunked out. After that first week I had him totally pegged. Buddy was from a small town in Vermont, with just enough brains so that he was able to glide through high school without needing to crack a book, which got him mostly As and Bs, and a decent enough SAT score. What he totally failed to understand was that now he was playing in the big leagues, where everyone and their brother had managed to do that. He was now competing against guys like me, people who actually studied and went to class, and we were going to bury him.
By the end of the second week I had a nice little rhythm going of studying like a madman until the end of classes Friday, and then getting a little bent on Friday night and Saturday. I scored a lid through Buddy and his connections, although I had to keep it under lock and key so that Buddy wouldn’t smoke it all up himself. I also kept the boozing under control, not out of some moralistic sense, but because I didn’t enjoy the hangovers. Most Friday or Saturday nights there would be a band playing down in the Rat. I would sometimes hit the Rat weeknights, too. It stayed open most nights until 11:00 or 12:00, for people looking for a place to study and grab a late meal. I started going down every few nights late to play pool. I had enjoyed it before, but gave it up when I moved off campus.