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Putting the Preppies in Their Place

"It's easy to get the idea that preppy Ivy League kids think we're idiots in uniforms," Goetz says, recalling one Brown routine that especially irked him. "The band P.A. announcer said, 'This was the second year West Point graduated girls, but we're still waiting for the first man. What's that supposed to mean? That's funny?"

Teresa Ward, editor of the Slum and Gravy, the Point's student newspaper, adds her regret that "Some people at Harvard might think we're war-mongerers or unfriendly." Not so, says Ward, pointing out that many of the cadets here for the weekend will specifically try to eliminate the stereotype, while at the same time "finding out what these preppy colleges are all about."

(The Harvard band, by the way, plans, "an up-to-date report on current events, the military, the economy and the Middle East," one informed insider says.)

CADETS take 40 courses, 31 of them required. They undergo rigorous physical training and live without the usual college frills of all-night poker games, late-morning snooze sessions and easy access to boyfriends and girlfriends. "It would be fair to say that a lot of the cadets look forward to the football weekend as their preeminent opportunity for socializing if not just to get off campus for a while," says Army spokesman Carnahan.

Last night, hordes of well-groomed cadets patrolled the streets of Cambridge and Boston, while others attended a mixer arranged by the Point's Hostess Office and featuring young women from Smith, Mount Holyoke and Wellesley.

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They'll have tonight as well to indulge in the area's bohemian pleasures, though Carnahan says slightly different behavior is expected of the Army's youth division than of, say, Dartmouth fans.

"There's nothing wrong with a cadet taking a drink; that's part of the social development an officer needs, learning how to have a drink or two the right way." Carnahan explains, "But there is a clear emphasis on correct behavior."

Veteran Calvert summarizes: "You can drink, but if you're totally sloshed at the game, and people can notice, you'll get in deep trouble eventually." There are no sympathetic senior tutors at West Point.

Still, that fifth beer is not the important thing for cadets on "trip section." While off campus, they can visit friends and family or tour Boston. "It's nice not having that omnipresent green raincoat standing above you for once," says Goetz.

Most of all, the game's the thing Everyone plays at least an intramural sport at West Point, and there will be a lot of vicarious signal-calling among the rigid legions of gray this afternoon.

Sue Miguel, a sophomore, won't be here because of a basketball practice, but she knows what it will look like. "Every game brings the corps together," she says," marching in companies, chanting, going crazy together-it's a big release."

The banners are flying back at West Point today--"Draw Crimson Blood." "Humiliate Hahvahd." "Pulverize the Preppies," and so on--but almost every cadet wishes he or she were standing in the cold at Soldiers Field.

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