Volume 2, Issue 666 • October 2019
WELCOME TO THE HALLOWEEN EDITION OF REVEILLE We wish you… Oh! Sorry, wrong holiday. What do you get when you take the inside out of a hot dog? A hollow weenie. In this edition, we’re mixing in some MMA tales, some from personal experience and just some fun facts and truths and non-truths about Halloween. I was in Headquarters during my first year at MMA in the 1975-76 school year. For those of who don’t know what Headquarters is, it was the top floor of the Administration Building (now called Stribling Hall). It was the rooms for cadets in grades 4-6 and a few 7th graders. Right above the water fountain in Headquarters was an access panel to the dome. At that time, it was silver, not gold like it is now. Old boys told recruits that through the panel and up in the dome was where they put Colonels when they died. As a young, impressionable cadet, one has the tendency to believe stuff like that. During the night, after taps, when we woke up to go to the head and use the water fountain, we kept an eye on the access panel just in case. During Mother’s Day Weekend (now known as Spring Family Weekend), the first time that my parents came to see me, I mentioned it to my mother. She didn’t know what to say because she didn’t have much of a sense of humor. When my dad came later in the year, I showed him the access panel that I had been telling him stories about. He laughed when seeing it and that made my day and year. Fast forward a few years later after I graduated. I stopped by MMA to say hello to Col. Kelly during his last year as Academy president. I walked up the steps of Stribling Hall and ran into a Marine General and thought to myself that there aren’t many of them. Col. Kelly walked around the corner and said “hello” with his ever-present smile. We chatted for a few minutes bringing each other up to date on what was happening in each other’s lives. We walked the halls of just about every building and I heard behind-thescenes stories that I never knew about as a cadet. I showed him my first room and told him stories that he had never heard before. Since they were nearly ready to take down the old Stribling Hall, I told him the story about putting the dead Colonels in the dome and about the access panel. He replied that he sure hoped that they didn’t do that because he was an old Colonel now. We got a good laugh out of it. The truth is that none of the old Colonels were put up there. Sincerely, Richard Cooper ’82
Volume 2, Issue 666 • October 2019
A cadet with his spooky Halloween decoration in 1980.
REVEILLE! 2 SPOOK-TACULAR STORIES HARROWING TALES OF HORROR FROM AROUND MMA
Ancient Origins of Halloween Terrifying Trivia 1. Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death. 2. Jack o’ Lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday. 3. Pumpkins also come in white, blue, and green. 4. Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.
Cadets build a Jack o’ Lantern with a faculty member cir. 1970. Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of the year associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
On the night of October 31, they celebrated the Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely depending on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
5. Halloween candy sales average about $2 billion in the United States.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge scared bonfires, where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fire, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
HALLOWEEN 2019 REVEILLE!
Beware of Half Nuts By Richard Cooper ’82
This is the story about Half Nuts. He is one of our notable alumni, and no — he’s not related to Bigfoot. He was a three-year cadet, but no one knew his grade or what years that he attended the Academy. He put limitations on himself and could not take the rigors of MMA’s everyday discipline. He went AWOL one night and headed to back campus. No one knew that he was gone until the following morning mess formation. To make a long story short, both parents and the police were called but to no avail. Eventually his side of the room was cleaned out, and he ended up being listed as a missing person. Years later when cadets would go to back campus for various reasons, maybe to go to Mismilaca, to walk the railroad tracks or whatever, they would hear sounds. The sounds were very similar to what you see
and hear in the movies. The cadets would search and look around in curiosity and find nothing. As time went on the legend of Half Nuts became larger and larger. My first encounter with Half Nuts was in the fall of my first year at MMA. As a 6th grader, your imagination has no limitations. During 8th grade, I was 1st Sergeant of Bravo and had some younger cadets following me to Mismilaca for the fall cookout. Most of the followers were in their first year, so I introduced them to the story of Half Nuts. As I was going through the story, I heard noises and felt like someone was watching us. You could hear the tree branches move and other things going on around us. I told the cadets that this is just a good story and not to worry about anything because now was the time for the animals to be getting ready for winter.
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After we arrived at Mismilaca later that night, you could see the moon and stars in the beautiful Missouri sky. Two first year cadets decided not to follow Capt. Garret’s (junior school history teacher) orders of staying within so many feet of the building. They wondered off and so did some of the old boys. I really don’t know what happened out there that night but, a few minutes later, two recruits came running inside faster than a speeding bullet. They were breathing hard and about to cry but couldn’t speak coherently. About a minute or so later, three old boys came in walking and laughing so hard that they couldn’t speak either. To this day no one has seen Half Nuts but, the legend continues.
Loup-Garou is After YOU! Beware of Louisiana’s creepy swamp legend Loup-Garou (French pronunciation for werewolf). Legend says that it prowls Louisiana swamps to hunt down Catholics who don’t observe Lent and children that don’t behave. I’m not trying to pick on Catholics, but most Cajuns are of that religion. What is the Loup-Garou? It’s a beastly werewolf, or dog-like creature existing in the rich Cajun folklore along the swamps and bayous of southeast Louisiana. One of the ways that you become a LoupGarou is if you don’t observe Lent for seven years in a row. Another version was used to make kids behave. They would tell there children that if they did not behave then they would turn into one.
There are other ways to morph into a Loup-Garou. If you were cursed by someone, then you could be cursed to become the Loup-Garou. To get rid of this curse, you had to get someone else to cut you and draw blood. When that person cuts you, the curse would transfer unto them, releasing you of the curse — but turning them into the creature.
How do you protect yourself? There are two ways that people would do this. The first being placing 13 pennies or rocks on your doorstep or windowsill. When the Loup-Garou tries to break into a home, the creature will become perplexed and keep trying to count the items. Since the creature doesn’t know the number 13, the pennies keep the monster at bay continuously counting, until it
must retreat into the swamp at sunrise. Another is putting a colander on your doorstep to achieve the same method; the monster will keep trying to count holes. Did you know? The fear of Halloween is known as samhainopobia.
HALLOWEEN 2019 REVEILLE!
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Quick Frights, MMA Ghoulish Delights! 1. The legend of the sweeping janitor in Alpha Company … Cadets could hear whistling and sweeping late at night in the basement but, no one was ever there.
2. Gunny Tompkins has seen and been grabbed by something in Bravo Company. Multiple people reference Room 116 and seeing an orb passing through walls. 3. Nurse Laura Young-Ireland claims that, during the construction of the academic building, the doors in the cadet hospital were opening and closing. After she’d turned the lights off, they would come back on. 4. After construction was completed of the academic building, Tray Munson assistant commandant, and Laura reported seeing the doctors of old MMA standing and looking out of a window. Laura knew who they were because of the pictures that used to hang in the hallway. 5. Cadet William Kortkamp was assigned to Bravo Company, Room 116. He and his family were staunch Catholics (Latin service-type staunch) and he was getting into trouble for things, so his parents came to meet with Vaughn and Eastman. They went to the boy’s room and immediately the mom felt like something was very wrong and insisted on an exorcism. MMA didn’t do that but moved him to a different room. 6. Bernie Strunk says he saw orbs on a security video. 7. Gunny Tompkins saw an orb following Bill Chrismer down a hallway and then saw it on videotape also.
Frightening Film Facts! 1. The movie Halloween was made in only 21 days and on a very limited budget. 2. The movie was shot in the spring and used fake fall leaves. 3. The mask used by Michael Myers in the movie was William Shatner’s (Captain Kirk for you, Trekies) mask. 4. While the setting for the story is in Illinois, the vehicles have California license plates. 5. The Ouija Board ended up outselling the game Monopoly in its first full year at Salem, Mass. Over two million copies sold. 6. Signs of a werewolf are a unibrow, hairy palms, tattoos, and a long middle finger (made you look!).
8. Richard Benton Hall would roam the halls of Echo Company. One could hear shoe taps even when no one was in the hall, yet still you could hear the taps walking toward and past you and the air temperature would dramatically drop. 9. About five years ago, something was bothering Simon Barrera several nights in a row in Bravo Company — like something was trying to wake him up. He then said that it felt like something bit him in the middle of the night. He thought that it was a charlie horse cramp at the time, but when he woke up in the morning, he had marks on his leg that looked like a human bite mark.
This special Halloween Edition of Reveille is brought to you by MMA Alumni Association President Hunter Jenkins ’85.
HALLOWEEN 2019 REVEILLE!
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Cadet Grim Sightings Around Campus
Photos provided courtesy of Gunny Tompkins.