F Troop and Other Citadel Stories

Knob Rebellion

48 Knob Rebellion T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month.” F Company knobs at the Citadel, Class of 1968, in the spring of 1965 knew he was wrong. March is the cruelest month. As hard as the knob year was, March was the month that was the hardest, cruelest month of all. As the month of February of that year neared its close, rumor spread throughout the F Company knob world that the sophomores had something special planned beginning in March. The knobs weren’t worried about the rumors. By then, those knobs left, about twenty-five of the forty plus who had begun the year, were hard core veterans of the plebe system. They had weathered the appalling worst. They had come together as a class. They were fit and ready. The end of the year was in sight, drawing nearer each day. Those not going to make it through to the end of the year had already quit and left. Barring unpredictable family crises or poor grades, those remaining, so they thought, were destined to wear the ring. There would be no more dropouts due to the physical or mental rigors of the system. The sophomores had other ideas. They were poised for one more run, one more effort to drive out the weak, to see that only the best remained. At the beginning of the school year only members of the training cadre were allowed any contact with the knobs. Only two members of the sophomore class were cadre members, the guidon corporal, who was also the company clerk, and one other corporal. Cadre lasted but two weeks. After that period, the other eight sophomore corporals were allowed to join in the fun of racking knobs. The remaining sophomores, all cadet privates, had to wait until the start of the second semester in January. 49 Knob Rebellion The thinking of the sophomore class was that once the whole class was loosed upon the knobs, the knob class unity would break and droves of them would leave the Citadel in despairing surrender. That didn’t happen and the sophomores were indignant about their failure. They met and came up with a scheme designed to be the final undoing of the knobs. They sought and received permission from F Company’s commanding officer to carry out their plan. All of this was unknown to the knobs. The first Monday morning in March as the knobs returned from breakfast in the mess hall to the F Company area in the barracks, they were met on the first division gallery by the sophomores en masse. One by one as the knobs ascended the F Company stairwell, they were accosted, told to hit it, and dragged and placed along the gallery in lengthening line, where they were made to brace, run in place, and do pushups and sit-ups. A full blown sweat party. The entire knob class racked as one by the entire sophomore class. Something new. Not really. Just more of the same. The knobs had long since adjusted to it. The timing was new. Once classes had begun back in the fall, except for isolated incidences when one or more knobs might be subjected to rackings lasting only a few minutes, this time of morning had been devoted to cleaning and straightening rooms, or a last minute look into the books before leaving the barracks for the first round of classes that began at eight a.m. The Citadel day revolved around a tight schedule. Following breakfast , normally there was about forty-five minutes, the only unscheduled time of the day, a blessed time, a time to attend to personal needs, and to relax a moment before jumping into the cares of the day. On this particular day, the sweat party lasted a half hour, leaving scant time for the knobs to recover, remove the sweat from their bodies, and to attend to anything else. Those with an eight o’clock class barely had time to do anything before heading out. At the Citadel being late to class wasn’t an option. The next day it was more of the same. And the day after that. And the day after that. The entire week. The knobs expected the weekend to be different . Surely it wouldn’t continue on Saturday and Sunday. But it did. No let up.The following week the same.The din grew louder and louder.A major aspect of collective racking was the noise...