Back when I was much younger, I attended a certain famous U.S. Military Academy which of course, shall remain nameless. This was quite a challenging experience, and one that I cherish now, with memories of this experience that most certainly changed me at the young age, for the better. It was actually pretty much hell on earth the first year—and I learned a lot about myself in that I could probably survive just about anything—if I just set my mind to it.  I learned a lot about being yelled at for always being late, although I was on time, having “cables” on my uniform, which actually meant a microscopic piece of lint, upperclassmen screaming in my ears constantly, eating like a robot, saying “yes sir, “no sir” and “no excuse sir” as the only responses allowed the first year.  Oh yes, then, the shower formations where we screamed many patriotic songs, as loud as we could, all three verses while naked, and doing squat thrust exercises (now referred to as the dreaded burpee) for not being loud enough, or something.  Well, the list goes on and on and I won’t bore you with the details, but it got better, a little, the second year, and I learned about survival training and prisoner of war simulations, and learned to fly gliders.  We were highly respected in the community and quite patriotic, willing to die for our country.  Yes, we were LCWB, the Last Class with Balls.

However, the academics were quite superb, with challenging courses and outstanding instructors. This included lots of mathematics, engineering, English literature, science, and we all needed to take a foreign language.   I took French, and apparently, they liked me so much in the French department, that they wanted to send me to France to be an exchange student with the French Air Force Academy, the L’Ecole de L’air. There was one caveat:  if I accepted this invitation to study overseas for a year, then I would owe the U.S. military a career, with no turning back.  Even if I wanted to enjoy French wine and taste French girls, or vice versa, ooh la la.

I did well at the Academy, ran on the cross country and track teams, and stayed out of trouble for the most part.  However, since they told me my eyes weren’t good enough to be a fighter pilot, I decided that I wanted to become a physician, and was told that was not possible as a military doctor, unless I wanted to wait and serve first before applying.  So, with much inner soul searching, I decided I needed to leave before it was too late, and become a civilian doctor. I have since saved lives, and many of them are military veterans, and I salute them.

Now, as this was happening, a certain large yearbook was produced, you know, typical college yearbook with sports photos, professors, cadets, activities etc., except it was a military academy yearbook, with no women cadets yet, or women anywhere actually, except when they visited the imprisoned animals at football games or other activities. The reason I mentioned that is this: it causes us men to do stupid things sometimes.

The photo on this blog is an actual photo of a yearbook at this famed institution, of two cadets, or at least one cadet and a cow skull with arms and a body, reading what appears to be a French educational magazine.  You know, it says OUI on the front cover, so it had to be French.  But it turns out, this magazine was discontinued in 2007, and was noted to have very you know, large educational pictorials and fold-outs, if you know what I mean, and there was not much French education in it except on the front cover. In fact, there probably weren’t many written words at all in this publication.  So, as soon as this yearbook and photo was published, — or perhaps there might have been other photos which were, let’s see, not becoming of a cadet’s shiny sterling image, the US military ordered all yearbooks confiscated immediately!  They wanted to re-produce the yearbook, at taxpayer’s expense, without these horrible “mistakes” in them.

All cadets turned in their yearbooks, maybe four thousand of them, I don’t know, but I was the only one who did not turn in his yearbook, because I was leaving the institution the next week, and everyone seemed to forget about cadet Carson!  So, I was the only one to have the original remaining copy of this forbidden and now re-written yearbook, and it is sitting on my bookshelf now but will soon be removed back to a secret location.  I just looked at it the other day and remembered this event clearly.  I just hope that now I published this, the authorities such as the now politically motivated FBI will not come and bust my door down with weapons in my face to get it.  They need to lighten up and laugh a little.  Either way, they will never find it anyway, and the bears in my back yard are quite hungry for FBI agents who are sent by their political bosses in Washington to do jobs the good agents hate— like harassing an innocent man like me for no reason.

Oh, the memories and French class…  and no, I know what you are thinking but that is certainly not me in the picture.

© SRCarson, 2022