Can you imagine the profound impact a simple posture correction technique can have on discipline? Brace yourselves as Ricky, Troy, and I unpack the unique terminologies and practices of Plebe Summer at the United States Naval Academy. This episode dives into the physical and emotional rollercoaster of "bracing up," reveals the secrets behind the mnemonic "ditties," and decodes the meaning of "sticking out a paw." Our discussion sheds light on how these seemingly small practices play a critical role in the midshipman experience.
Prepare to be learn about all the different definitions and contexts surrounding the word "rate" and the accountability it enforces. We also tackle the notorious "chow calls" — an experience that’s part alarm clock, part performance test — detailing how plebes navigate the high-pressure environment of memorizing menus and making constant announcements. Through Ricky and Troy's personal anecdotes, you'll get an insider's look at how these challenges build camaraderie and resilience, painting an authentic picture of life at the Naval Academy.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
Can you imagine the profound impact a simple posture correction technique can have on discipline? Brace yourselves as Ricky, Troy, and I unpack the unique terminologies and practices of Plebe Summer at the United States Naval Academy. This episode dives into the physical and emotional rollercoaster of "bracing up," reveals the secrets behind the mnemonic "ditties," and decodes the meaning of "sticking out a paw." Our discussion sheds light on how these seemingly small practices play a critical role in the midshipman experience.
Prepare to be learn about all the different definitions and contexts surrounding the word "rate" and the accountability it enforces. We also tackle the notorious "chow calls" — an experience that’s part alarm clock, part performance test — detailing how plebes navigate the high-pressure environment of memorizing menus and making constant announcements. Through Ricky and Troy's personal anecdotes, you'll get an insider's look at how these challenges build camaraderie and resilience, painting an authentic picture of life at the Naval Academy.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. The Academy Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in, please reach out to me directly at grantatthevermiergroupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page, grant Vermeer, and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode. Hey everyone, and welcome back to part two of the Plebe Summer Terminology Series.
Speaker 1:
Here on the Academy Insider Podcast, I'm joined again by Ricky and Troy, so if you enjoyed the last episode. You're gonna love this one. I'm telling you we're just continuing on with the Plebe Summer Terminology. You're gonna continue to get that insight and feel like you understand what's going on at the Academy, the terminology that's being used, and you're gonna understand stories that your son or daughter is telling you, understand stories that your son or daughter is telling you. I hope you love it. If you do again, please like, subscribe, share, leave a review. Doing all those things tremendously helps the podcast and the channel. So if you can do that, that would mean the world to me. If you ever have any questions, shoot them my way. I'd love to answer them and be that resource for you. Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker 1:
All right, hey, everyone, and welcome back to part two of the Plebe Summer Terminology Series, back with Troy and Ricky Conlin. We're going to save the intros for this one. If you don't know these two knuckleheads by now, I recommend we go back and listen to episode number one here, because you should anyway. It's pretty good, but we're going to jump right back into terminology. So, to start off, in episode one of this series we talked about things that kind of just happened in the hallway Alpha codes chopping. What a bull kid is keeping your eyes in the boat. Bearing all these different aspects. I want to start this episode with a little bit more on the topic of remediation. Right, and so you know, some of the funniest stories come from remediating when you do things wrong as a plebe. And so, following up on bearing, I want to follow up on this term. And, troy, did your detailers ever make you brace up? And if you do know what it is, do you mind talking to the people about what it means to brace up?
Speaker 2:
So I can honestly say I never had to brace up. Yeah, I never had to brace up. That was something that I did not experience. I saw it on the list. Yeah, I never had the bracelet. That was something that I did not experience. I saw it on the list.
Speaker 1:
I was like I don't remember what that is, so I'm going to pass that to you.
Speaker 3:
All right, ricky, you were laughing, do you remember what this is? Went with it and I have just like evaporated that from my mind entirely. But it involved like you put your head out, you put your chin down and then you're like pull back in and make like like triple chins, oh my god. And you basically like stand like that, have to run around like that and and like we would have people, we would have to do it at meals, we would have to walk around I'm actually embarrassed that I didn't remember that.
Speaker 3:
That is hilarious it, it like it hurt and get your neck sore and whatnot, but most most especially, you just looked really stupid doing it and I hated doing it. I hated bracing as a plebe, so I I remember that very well, that is funny.
Speaker 1:
Oh my god, I completely forgot yeah, because it it hurts, like your jaw and neck after a while, like it starts to get, like you're just, you can't, you can't move. I mean, that's kind of the whole point, though, right from an actual purpose of like bracing up if you have no bearing, if your eyes are out of the boat constantly, you're turning around, you're looking all over the place when your neck's tucked like this. Yeah no choice you can't look anywhere else like that's, that's it, you're stuck like that and and the phrase.
Speaker 3:
The phrase was get a brace. And they said get a brace, and there was some magical term and you were locked into it. That's how it was uh and uh.
Speaker 1:
I'm actually gonna a quick interjection for one small term here, which is that cadence that you're talking about, like, like, when you're like, all right, there's a magical cadence to go from step one to step two, to step three. I'm bringing up this term diddy Troy, can you tell us what a diddy is? What is a diddy?
Speaker 2:
When you go in the drill they give you these very, you know, stochastic phrases that you always remember, and if you get those phrases out of line, the whole purpose is to take out the randomness of doing an action. So you have one step that has an associated ditty. Second step has an associated ditty or something that you say out loud, so that the action also has some vocal phrase that you immediately associate with execution some vocal phrase that you immediately associate with execution Yep, 100%.
Speaker 1:
So that's, that was part of the. The get embraced up is following a ditty, which, again, are just these vocal commands to help you in in coordination with a specific movement which is very specific to drill. We'll do a whole episode on drill so we won't waste too much time here. But my my favorite, brace story, rick. This is so funny because my detailers I had a very Marine Corps centric detailer crew. They weren't playing around, they weren't messing during plebe summer and if you weren't bracing correctly they would tell you to get a brace brace up, whatever the case was, and if your brace wasn't good enough, they would literally make you walk around. We had plebes. I had spend like a week carrying like a caesar salad packet underneath my chin, like they're. Like you are only bracing correctly. Like you are only bracing correctly if that like salad dressing packet doesn't fall off your chin.
Speaker 3:
so you have to put this little salad dressing packet and go and hold that up, these things, like somebody like thought about that somebody was like sitting in bed at night and thinking you know, what really determines a brace is when you can hold a pick, a ketchup, like. Who does that? What is that?
Speaker 1:
the long night. The detail, the detailer, is a 26 company baby that's.
Speaker 3:
That's next level.
Speaker 1:
Uh, yeah, that's something oh, good stuff, all right, uh one, uh one more remediation, uh, story that I want to tell. We're just going to follow this when we're talking about remediation, these are things that detailers do as creative. They're funny now creative things to remediate something that you're technically not doing well. And so I have a specific story where, again, even to today, I don't grow enough facial hair to shave every day. I just don't. And so during plebe summer, especially in my pre-pubescent years I'm 18, I barely shave. I would shave, but I didn't fully grow anything. So there was times where I just wouldn't shave because there was no hair there.
Speaker 1:
I had a detailer come up to me one day in an inspection Jericho or Manita. I love this guy to this day. I ran into him San Diego like literally a couple of months ago, hilarious dude. But he walked up because he was. He was short. Like I love my guy, he's a little shorter, so he's all up in my grill Like I'm head here. He's looking up at me and he's like, with shipment fourth class from here, did you shave this morning? You know what I mean. I'm like when you're a plebe. When you're a plebe, you can't lie like I don't. You know what I mean. I was like no sir, no sir, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:
And so, literally, because I didn't shave, every plebe, including the women, had to bring a razor out every morning.
Speaker 1:
We would bring out a razor, like after you would wake up and get dressed and like, come out to the bulkhead for the first time, we would have to bring our razors with us.
Speaker 1:
And then they would go and they would say all right, you have 30 seconds to go, wet your face and apply shaving cream, ready, go. And like everyone would run back in and like, do it and come back out of the hallway, and then they would go and then they would make us we literally like it was as if we were doing rifle drill. They were like present razor and as soon as they said it, you would have to stick your razor out to the like to the front and hold your razor out, and then they would give another command for you to actually shave. And for the women they're just like fake shave, just don't touch your face, but like fake it, like I was just like, oh my god, dude. And so to this day, like I always like laugh, I just he was just like preset razor and you just have to go and like, because of me, every single person in our company in the mornings, we lost out an additional 30 seconds because we'd have to go and bring our razor out to the front.
Speaker 2:
Uh, golden, that is the stuff people think of man I'm glad you still shave to this day hey, that's because my my, and that's because my facial hair just is so unattractive.
Speaker 1:
I like my hair doesn't get like thicker, it just gets like wispy and longer.
Speaker 3:
It's gross I'm actually a child it actually took me a long time to grow a beard too. For those listening on the podcast, I typically look like a pirate in my post Navy days. But the the sad part about when you do get old enough to grow a beard if you have the boyish looks I had as a youngster you you also grow hair in other places so I can grow a beard, but I have hair growing everywhere. So you know, blessing and a curse.
Speaker 1:
All right, uh, I'm gonna turn it over to you. If you guys have any like funny remediation stories, things that happened, um, that you remember, I'd love to hear them now. If not, we can, we can move on, but I figure I'll give it an open, open floor here. If you got something you remember, we can move on, but I figure, I'll give it an open floor here.
Speaker 2:
If you got something to remember, troy, you got anything. We talked about the Bearing Bear last time. The Bearing Bear was probably the one that got me the most. Frankly, between the Bearing Bear, and getting dropped.
Speaker 3:
I mean, those were the two that took up most of my Plebe Summit. I guess the only thing that I would say is I had plenty of remediation, and it usually came in the form of getting dropped. But I'd also mention outside of Plebe Summer. Plebe and Plebe Summer is used as almost a Rosetta Stone for maximum military stress in the Naval Academy world, and so I remember during Plebe year, during the academic year, if the company was not the company of Plebes was not performing well or they'd messed something up, you would get the back to basics week, and back to basics basically meant we're going back to Plebe summer and so just the. When I think about remediation in Plebe Summer, I just think about the fact that Plebe Summer itself is used as remediation during the academic year. I remember that happening two or three times, where they just you know, would go back to some ridiculous rule that we had to deal with in Plebe Summer.
Speaker 2:
And you just absolutely loathe going back to the chaos of plebe summer, especially while you're managing chemistry, calculus, all the different academic oh man, horrible.
Speaker 3:
Being a plebe is not by any stretch the worst or hardest thing that you'll do in the military, but it's definitely not fun and it's definitely annoying, and when you're 18, it's about the last thing that you want to be doing. And so I've done worse and my remediations have been harsher in life. But man, at that time, getting that taste of humble pie, does that taste distinctly familiar. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
All right, let's get back to a couple of actual terminology. Let's get back to the education piece. Guys, we're here to educate. I'm sorry for taking us off track there. The term sticking out a paw, rick, you ever stick out a paw during plebe summer? Yeah, there it is. There it is. Stick that paw out. Stick that paw out. That was again. This is one that's just like. Anytime a detailer's asking something, they'll say stick out a paw if you X, y or Z. It's just a form of accountability. It's like saying yes, but also, if you proactively, if you need to speak, you don't rate speaking as a plebe. You don't just get to speak.
Speaker 2:
That's not allowed, you don't rate it, which we'll talk about here. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so so the term rate you're going to hear in two forms during Cleve Summer. There are actual rates which are like things that you have to know, memorize or have some form of general knowledge about, like you can get rated right on your rates. So rate can be a verb of like. To get rated means to get asked questions about things you're supposed to know, and most of those rates come from the Reef Points book, right? So I'm using the word rate in about seven different contexts in the same sentence. So bear with me. Rates, noun, are the actual things you need to know. To get rated is like to be asked questions about rates you should know. And then the term rate you don't rate. That means like you don't have permission.
Speaker 1:
When you rate something, it means you actually have the privilege of doing that thing. So when you're a plebe, you don't rate, you don't have the privilege, you're not allowed to just speak out of turn Like you just don't get to do it. You only speak if spoken to, if that makes sense. It's like the. It's like the. It's like the movie quote don't speak, it Don't, don't, don't open your mouth, don't talk to me. They're like don't speak and I don't even know I'm messing this up right now, but the point is you don't, like you don't get to proactively speak and so if you stick out a paw back to stick out a paw here, if you stick out a paw that is your like.
Speaker 1:
Notification to a detailer. Like I need to say something. Right, I need to say something, and the most common thing normally asked when sticking out a paw is sir, but you're a fourth class premier, respectfully. Request to make a head call is especially when you have about the bladder of a four-year-old, which I do, and the amount of water you drink during a bleep summer. That was about every 45 minutes. Troy, you mind giving us a rundown on what a head call is?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so a head call. In the military, in the Navy in particular, we call the commodes heads. In the military in the Navy in particular, we call the commodes heads. And anytime you have to use the restroom, go to the bathroom, particularly number one, you have to go and do a head call because you have to ask permission to leave formation or leave the group as a whole. So you've got to make sure you ask for a head call and get permission during Cleve's summer, otherwise you don't rate it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you don't rate it. And the best part about it is you don't get to go alone. You don't get no privacy, because rick, why? Why don't we go anywhere without anyone else during plebe summer or plebe year? For for that?
Speaker 3:
matter really. Oh boy, I mean, you never leave a shipmate alone or behind. It's uh, ultimate accountability right.
Speaker 2:
Face down in a face down the rice paddy right. Can't leave them face down in a rice paddy. Can't leave them face down in a rice paddy.
Speaker 3:
Lance Corporal Rather. Was that a lesson beaten in your head? I just remember that everything was. Lance Corporal Rather, you keep somebody out of sight. They're lost to the wolves. They're gone Straight up.
Speaker 1:
You have a battle buddy. You're going to hear the wolves. They're gone, yep, straight up. And so you have a battle buddy. You're going to hear this term. You have a battle buddy Everywhere you go. You have to have a battle buddy because you're not going to get left alone, you're not going to be face down right, like you got to go, and you have to have a battle buddy. And so that was my personal favorite. It's like I just that someone had to pee faster than I did. You know what I mean, because if someone else had to stick out their paw and say, sir, respectfully, request to make a head call, you could just be like oh, I'll go.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I'll go with you, dude. Yeah, yeah, no for sure.
Speaker 3:
My grandfather. He was an army guy but he told me about sticking a paw out. He actually had some counterintuitive advice and saying that you shouldn't always immediately put your paw out because in the Navy that actually Navy stands for never again volunteer yourself. And I just remember at times people be like who wants to go to a picnic? And you're like, oh, and then it's like, okay, we'll go pick up that trash for two hours and there's, there's a cupcake afterwards and so, like I remember sticking out of paul, there was always a little bit of hesitation before I put that out or volunteered for anything oh yeah, 100, and along with just a head call.
Speaker 1:
I don't know if your detailers made you do this, but we would wait for people to get back from whatever head call before we moved on to the next evolution. So if it was going to take an more, a longer time period than uh, what one would normally assume, uh, for a trip to the restroom, you would have to respectfully request permission to make an extended head call, and there's nothing quite like announcing to everyone in that hallway that you got to take a deuce, you stick out that ball.
Speaker 2:
You have to have the courage that the detailer's gonna come over there and ask you a question and then ask permission to go take an extended head call and that's where the bearing comes into play too, because, especially if somebody is is, you know, a repeat offender like you're, like, okay, we know exactly what that mission before class is doing. And that bearing because you're just thinking about them going to these extended head calls, I couldn't, it's gracious yeah, and we talk about rick rick singing, waiting on my classmates.
Speaker 1:
Sir, that there's nothing worse than this is being a lot of pressure too, hey being on the stall, being on the stall and just hearing the chants from your classmates, waiting on my classmates, sir, uh, that'll put that life is a bleep stuff that'll put some pressure on
Speaker 1:
you put some pressure on you, all right. Moving on, we talked about reef points, which is good. We talked about rates, which is good. We talked about head calls uh, all right. Uh, rick, we used the term in the last one of sound off, but now I want to put it in the context of like, if you're just not talking loud enough, because the term sound off can mean like hey, when you say sound off, it's like hey, you're actually saying sir, go, navy, sir. But it can also just mean like you need to be louder, right, and so you might give us a rundown of the term sound off and then lock it up was kind of the con, like the opposite of that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah so. So sound off was usually the one thing that is actually pretty, pretty good lesson. But the in the Navy and Marine Corps they really do really learning to sound off and really make that noise and that motivated yelling and screaming like at a guttural level. And I think you have to do that or your voice wears out, and so sounding off is just getting you in the habit of projecting your voice or just, you know, torturing you and screwing you. Sometimes you would yell as loud as you could and they'd say sound off again, just to make you scream all the more louder.
Speaker 3:
And then on the flip side of that is lock it up If, if, if you're smoking and joking as a plebe or you're not locked up, you're not locked up. If you're not, you don't have that bearing. You're looking around or you know you're sitting in a group of plebs, is sitting at a meal and maybe a detailer goes away and they're, you know, talking a little bit. You lock it up and then everybody just has to kind of like, get that eyes of the boat bearing sort of thing, get that bearing back in. So it is literally polar opposites Lock it up, sound off, kind of the different poles.
Speaker 1:
Yep no no, a hundred percent. That's a that's always a good one.
Speaker 2:
Oh Troy what you got, yeah, quick recommendation, cause Rick hit, hit it on, losing your voice, I mean you were especially those first couple of weeks. You're yelling at the top of your lungs, so much Um one. You talked about that guttural yell, but also, when you're at child, that bearing bear, take some of that honey. Do a spoonful of honey and, like before you start to feel like you're losing your voice, just take a spoonful of honey. It'll keep you in the fight. It'll keep you in the fight.
Speaker 2:
I don't know why it works, but it works.
Speaker 1:
That, hey, that bearing bear is coming to save you. You got that honey on you at all times, keeping that thing on you All right now. Moving to probably, uh, a favorite topic here is this term chow call. You learn how to do it during plebe summer. Let's talk a little bit about chow calls troy, start us off, if you got it, a little bit about what a chow call is, um, and then you know again any stories of of child calls man, child calls is a staple in the experience it's a big part.
Speaker 2:
Um. So child calls are one of the first things that that you learn how to do. Um, highly recommend if you can practice doing them before you ever go to the plebe summer, because, like, the cadence of it is so fast, like so you're not talking to someone that's in some new information, no information goes in, and so you go through where the new, where the formation is what is the, what is the thing you're doing, what is the uniform?
Speaker 1:
What is?
Speaker 2:
the meal that you're going to be doing? Yeah, what special events are going on that day? Who is the mission officer to watch? You know different, different people who are there and you do them at different times and each of those times are not just a reminder for you as a plea to of the information that you're reciting, but once you get to the academic year, it's also a reminder for all of the upperclassmen that, hey, new meal or whatever meal is happening is about to happen right now. It's a wake up call oftentimes, so you're going to get told to sound off and you're never going to get told to lock it up when you're doing your child calls, because that is literally an alarm clock for the entire Bancroft Hall. But that information is critical and you guys can I don't know if you want to talk about it, but the stories of child calls.
Speaker 2:
So you, you, if you, once you're in a squad, you have, you know, one school, one little silver block that you all sit on and you've got four people deck plate baby, yep the deck plate and you've got four people back backs, turn to each other, or maybe two, depending on how many are available for for the formation of the academic year, um, and they're doing that child call at the top of their voice, um, and you get really close to those individuals who you share that deck plate with because you have to, because if you don't sound off, you're getting attention yeah, I, I remember them being very like they were.
Speaker 3:
I, I agree with troy, they're.
Speaker 3:
They're definitely an alarm for sure.
Speaker 3:
In fact, during the academic year the five minute chow call was my room's alarm clock to uh get out of bed and get dressed and scramble to formation at the last minute.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, but I remember as a plebe the chow call was every bit performative, as it was alarm clock, in that it was often used as a venue for a plebe to perform and mess up. And I remember there were certain upperclassmen whom I won't name, and every company has a couple that the chow call is a gauntlet. I just remember as a plebe plebe summer I think we did the chow calls as a group to learn it and kind of be together. But then in the academic year you do them individually and I remember there'd be like five or six throughout the hall and there'd be like certain chow calls that were outside, like the, the, the tough upperclassmen's room, and they would just they would live for coming out of there and torturing plebs and yelling at them and snapping in their face and you know you, you get the clapping or you get the in the face or the snap, or the trying to get something in your ear.
Speaker 1:
Um, but I, I hated chalcos, I hated chalcos, chalcos, chalcos are actively the worst, chalcos are actively the worst.
Speaker 1:
And it was always tough because, like, again, you're supposed to know like a million things during plebe summer and I think this is like the the frustrating part of the plebe experience because, like, all right, you know, you just messed up.
Speaker 1:
You know you're supposed to know rates x, y and z and all these different things and all these things that are of a higher importance, and so you're trying to study those and trying to learn those. But you know you need to know what the menu is for dinner on that day, and a lot of times the details are saying you need to know the menu for the next three days in advance. So you're trying to memorize the menu of all the food that you're about to eat, and so you're thinking about the menu for lunch tomorrow when you're being asked about dinner tonight and like your brains like fried, and so you're doing these child calls, right, and your number one advantage was just trying to yell as fast as you could, so they couldn't even understand what the heck, you were saying and you generally, like you generally had a good idea.
Speaker 1:
Right, like if you know it's hamburgers, like you can make up the rest. Right, you'd be like all right if there's hamburgers. Like we got lettuce, tomato, onion, buns, ketchup, mustard, like all the stuff, and you just start rattling it off one percent, two percent, chocolate, milk, you know what I mean. Like all the stuff, you just start going dude, you start, you start making the, the muscle memory of saying, like all the accoutrements, all the accessories of your meal, and you just go through it, right, and you just yell as fast as you can and half the time they're like I don't even think I know what you said, but like, all right, close enough, I guess.
Speaker 1:
Words of wisdom, words of wisdom and normally right chow calls, especially the academic year. Usually they'll be on increments, like you'll do it at the 15-minute mark, at the 10-minute mark, at the 5-minute mark as a punishment, and normally the standard operating procedure during pleb summer is that you'll do what we call all calls. So this term all calls Troy. You mind talking about what all calls is.
Speaker 2:
All calls is like you're essentially doing it in perpetuity no-transcript to the bottom of everything you're supposed to say.
Speaker 1:
And you're just yelling, right, and so you're there. And again, when it's on five minute increments, you're like sure you have 15 minutes until new meal formation. New meal formation goes into T-corp, blah, blah, blah, and you like you run through it and it's fine and you can rest for the next four minutes and talk about stuff. Those all calls are brutal because you're just yelling. Sir, you have 15 minutes to do more information blah blah blah.
Speaker 1:
You finished and you're like all right. Well, I got to go in and so you're just basically yelling for 15 minutes straight. So we talked about losing your voice and sounding off. Like that stuff happens so fast. Oh yeah, so fast, cause you're just like yelling so much, right, I think. Oh, I, it's half the reason you get the. You get the plebe hack dude. It's just like people get sick all the time. You're just losing your voice. You're screaming, there's germs everywhere. You're calling yeah, it gets bad, it your voice.
Speaker 2:
You're screaming. There's germs everywhere. You're coughing. Yeah, it gets bad it gets bad.
Speaker 1:
So there's this term plebe hack. This is, I think, how we're going to wrap up this episode before we kind of jump into potentially maybe some more grace-based terms in the next one and things that are going on. But the term plebe hack plebes get sick. Plebes, like when you cram all 1200 people with 300 detailers, 1500 people in this tiny space and people are sweating and gross and all over each other. Plebes get sick and it's it's a classic like just upper chest infection, a little respiratory infection. You got plebes coughing all the time and detailers yelling at you about keeping your bearing but you can't because you're coughing up a lung and you're just like, oh, it's chaos, it's pure chaos, it's bad.
Speaker 2:
In between that and the double dragon. I mean you never know what you're going to get.
Speaker 1:
Hey, we'll save people from the double dragon.
Speaker 2:
That'll be another episode, All right, Well for everyone listening. I hope you got a little bit out of another episode, all right.
Speaker 1:
Well, for everyone listening. I hope you got a little bit out of this episode. Just some terminology, some fun stories. We're going to follow it up with a part three and keep going through Cleve Summer terminology and, I hope, to keep you in the loop about things that are going on and help you speak the Naval Academy lingo. So, gentlemen, thank you so much. I appreciate you and I'll see you again in the future. Stay motivated. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
