162 SCUM Most teachers generally are thought of as occasionally being a bit ditzy, arguably an undeserved reputation. College professors in particular are often thought of as absent-minded professor types. There’s the Disney movie The Nutty Professor. Overall, the Citadel faculty of the 1960s deserved its well-earned standing of excellence. To a man, for there were no women faculty members then, they were outstanding in most respects, including in their eccentricities. Strangely, those with the highest scholarship and best oratory were the quirkiest. One oddity they all shared was that none of them was called “professor .”Even those holding the coveted Ph.D. degree were never addressed as “doctor.” The Citadel, being a military college, required all its professors to wear a military uniform and to join the South Carolina Unorganized Militia. SCUM. SCUM was an exclusive club, membership limited to the Citadel’s teaching faculty and a few key academic administrative positions. There were no enlisted personnel. Only officers. Those faculty members who at one time or another had actually served in the military were allowed to wear the uniform of the branch in which they had served. The others wore army uniforms. The rank within SCUM was determined by academic rank within each academic department. There were a few lowly lieutenants . Most were captains or majors. Some were lieutenant colonels.All the department heads were full bird colonels. There was only one general: the academic dean, and he was a mere brigadier with only one star. SCUM did not want to be perceived as thinking too much of itself militarily. In truth, 163 SCUM it was not a military organization, though all of its members wore military uniforms and were addressed by their military rank. Pete Creger entered the Citadel as a premed major. For two and a half years, through the end of the first semester of his junior year, he survived with passing but less than stellar grades. Entry into medical school was a fading, forlorn hope. The course that ultimately made Pete see the handwriting on the wall was organic chemistry. More accurately, it was Major Hemmings, who taught organic. More accurately still, it was the major’s sloppy lab procedures, the F Pete received in the course, and a conversation between the two of them that led directly to Pete’s giving up on medical school. Pete wasn’t in the lab on the afternoon of the explosion. He heard about it secondhand. The cadet involved blamed Major Hemmings. Major Hemmings blamed the cadet. Pete wasn’t real clear, but someone had poured hydrochloric acid into a beaker of other chemicals in too close proximity to a lit Bunsen burner, which caused rising gases resulting from the mixture to ignite, leading to the explosion. Fortunately, only Major Hemmings and the cadet conducting the experiment under Major Hemmings ’ supervision were injured. They both had cuts from flying glass, superficial burns, and sore throats and lungs from inhaling ghastly gaseous fumes, but they recovered nicely over time. It could have been worse, a lot worse. To Pete’s way of thinking, at the very least Major Hemmings was guilty of improper management of the lab. Major Hemmings, Pete thought, had a bad tendency to give hurried instructions, quickly throw a few chemicals together in test tubes or beakers, and walk away, expecting the poor, befuddled student to instantly grasp what was to be done. There had been a few other small mishaps before the big explosion, which had rapidly become the talk of the campus. A fire in a chemical lab full of all sorts of solutions, mixtures, and volatile substances was dangerous. The fire department was called. Luckily, the fire somehow was contained to the single lab. The lab was completely destroyed, but the rest of Bond Hall survived the explosion and fire unscathed and intact. It took months to restore the [18.191.135.224] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:58 GMT) 164 F Troop and Other Citadel Stories lab, which seriously impacted the whole chemistry department’s completion of required laboratory work. The serious students stewed, but the marginal ones, the ones like Pete, didn’t mind so much. Even before the explosion Pete had begun to question the soundness of conducting continuing chemical procedures under the auspices of the never-watchful Major Hemmings. After the explosion Pete was convinced that when Major Hemmings was in charge of the lab, the lab was an unsafe , perilous place. It was...