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This story involves homosexual activity between high school age boys. If you object to such, or if you are underage, please read no further.
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A YEAR AT
ROBERT E. LEE ACADEMY
Chapter II
The Academy
Founded in 1870, the Robert E. Lee Military Academy had always been something of a hybrid between a traditional military school and a British public school. Its founder Commodore James Aloysius Carter, had gone to Eton before he entered Annapolis as a member of its first class in 1845.
He continued to serve in the American Navy during the Civil War, but his allegiance to his North Carolina homeland was always strong. So after his retirement from the navy, he established the academy on an ancestral plateau not far from the Tennessee border.
At the time of our story, most of its six-thousand acre campus is still almost-virgin forest, reached from U.S. Highway 19. The road from the highway is flanked by two massive pillars, and it leads for several miles past the residences of faculty and staff members to the central campus, where it loops past the playing fields and around the parade ground. The Georgian-style residence halls all face the parade ground with the chapel at the east end and the gymnasium to the west. Across from the residence halls, along the south side of the parade ground are the academic buildings, Beauregard Hall, and Stuart Hall, and the administration building, Perry Hall. The Mess Hall and the Infirmary are on either side of the gym with the playing fields behind. Carter Lake is to the South of the campus buildings.
Commodore Carter was a fervent Christian and ordained that chapel services be held daily. He was not a fundamentalist, however, and did not think much of sermons. Hence, homilies were to be preached only on Sunday, and those would be no longer than ten minutes.
Like the Eton of his youth, the school would be organized into six forms. They would correspond to modern American grades seven through twelve. English, History, Math, and Military and Naval Science were taught in each form. In addition French was taught in Forms 1, 2, and 3. German in the upper forms. The commodore also mixed naval and military nomenclature at will. For example, confinement to quarters was to be put in hack, a naval usage.
Each cadet was expected to participate in a sport, preferably a team sport. But over the years fencing, swimming, wrestling, track and field, even tennis came to be permitted. Competition, however, was paramount.
The class schedule allowed for gymnastics three days a week with study hall the other two. Cadets who might need to deal with personal business matters might obtain permission to take care of them during study hall.
Commodore Carter was the school's first superintendent and headmaster. Each subsequent head had been a senior military officer. Beneath him was an assistant superintendent for military matters and an assistant headmaster for academic matters. The chaplain and the physician reported directly to the superintendent. The coaches and maintenance men to the assistant superintendent. The mess steward and housekeepers to the assistant headmaster.
The assistant superintendent was usually a West Point or Annapolis graduate who had left the service before retirement. He was assisted by one or two retired master sergeants or chief petty officers. The assistant headmaster was always recruited from a well-known private boarding school or academy. And the teaching faculty all had impeccable credentials.
It was required that at least four faculty members be bachelors. They became proctors in the four residence halls, each of which had a small apartment on the first floor. The proctor was the law in his domain; but enforcement of regulations was generally not a problem, because of the way the Corps of Cadets was organized.
The Battalion Commander was always a sixth-former, his deputy a fifth. They shared quarters in Jackson Hall. Thus the Deputy Battalion Commander became very well versed in the problems he would encounter when he took over the following term.
The four Company Commanders were usually upper formers, although they were chosen by the military faculty strictly on the basis of their military competence. Each had a room on the second floor of the hall where his company was housed. This they shared with their Platoon Leaders, lieutenants who each oversaw one of the two floors in each hall.
Then there were the Squad Leaders. Residents of every two adjacent rooms comprised a squad. Each squad was led by a Cadet Sergeant. So at least when it came to major infractions, close supervision extended down to eight man units. The system worked well.
Weekdays Reveille was at 6:30. First Formation at 7:00. Breakfast at 7:15. Second Formation and Chapel at 8. Classes from 8:30 to 11:30. Third Formation at 11:30. Lunch at 11:45. Classes from 12:30 to 3:30. Fourth Formation and Drill from 3:30 to 4:30. Athletics at 4:30. Fifth Formation at 6:00. Dinner at 6:15. Study and Extracurricular Activities 7:00 to 9:30. Taps at 10. A pretty full day.
Saturdays Reveille was at 7:00. First Formation at 7:30. Breakfast at 7:45. Second Formation and Chapel at 8:30. Third Formation and Drill 8:30 to 10:00. Fourth Formation at 11:45. Lunch at 12:00. Fifth Formation at 6:00. Dinner at 6:15. Taps at 11:00.
Sundays Reveille was at 8:00. First Formation at 8:30. Breakfast at 8:45. Second Formation and Chapel at 10:00. Taps at 10. Lunch and Dinner on Sundays were more relaxed affairs. And Saturday and Sunday there was much more free time for the cadets. Of course on Football Saturdays attendance at the game was mandatory.
This organizational scheme and schedule had remained pretty much the same since the academy's founding. The rigidity of both was attributed to Commodore Carter's well-known personal discipline. He had remained a "confirmed bachelor" all his life. Some have suggested he was a homosexual and that that may contribute to the academy's relaxed attitude toward sexual shenanigans.
Be that as it may, as Rex Stephens said, the proctors don't seem to care and the cadet officers all mess around themselves. Some have even been known to use sex as a disciplinary measure.