Artificial suicide

From USAFA Folklore

In the summer of 1990, some BCT cadre set up a fake suicide by a fake basic cadet. Although technically more of a "spirit mission," this might be more appropriately categorized under stupid cadet tricks, with emphasis on the "stupid."

[edit] Accounts

• The following happened while I was serving on the USAFA faculty. I didn’t witness it but heard it from a classmate of mine who did, while working as an Associate AOC for BCT. It’s First Beast... and the officer and cadet staff is gathered for their morning staff meeting over in some conference room at the back of Vandenberg Hall below the tour pad....Of course, the most important of these poo-bahs have their bricks with them. Good thing, too, because suddenly there’s a bunch of excited radio chatter – seems there is a basic who has flipped out and is threatening to throw himself off the Terrazzo. Everyone is frozen as they listen to the increasingly desperate voices coming over the air waves trying to coax this kid off the railing, and then suddenly they hear a voice shout, “Oh no, he jumped!” The people in this conference room saw two different things hurtle past the window. The cadets saw a fully clothed basic, while the officers saw their careers plummeting past the glass to the pavement below. Rushing to the window, they could just see his legs sticking out from under the dorm. Of course, when they finally made it down to ground level, they discovered that the basic was merely a mannequin with a good tuck. The officers were said to be unamused; I’m sure some of the stracter cadets were, too. Don’t know what hits were finally levied, if any, but bravo to whoever conceived and executed this stunt. - (e-mail, 4-20-1999)

• I had forgotten about this one until I read somebody else's post. It was 1st BCT during the summer of 90. The Group Staff and the AOCs got together regularly in the Honor Conference Room in Vandenberg Hall to talk about how things were going. The officers all sat facing the windows, and the cadets all sat with their backs right up against the windows. We (the cadets) decided that it might be fun to lighten up the mood a little. At each our end of the conference table, the Cadet Group Commander had his brick turned up and sitting on the table. The group AOC sat at the other end of the table, and he also had a brick. During the middle of the meeting, somebody calls over the radio....and explains that there's a problem with a Basic going a little nuts up on the Terrazzo. The Group Commander tells him to take care of it and goes back to the meeting. Shortly after, there's a few more frantic calls on the brick, and some yelling from the Terrazzo above, which we could all hear, since we had opened the windows when we sat down. After about 30 seconds of commotion, and the "Oh my God, he jumped" call on the radio, a body dressed in BDU pants, a USAFA T-Shirt, and a red cap goes sailing past the window. It was, of course, a dummy. Well, the entire room came to its feet at once. A couple of the AOCs gasped or yelled or whatever. One of them, a major from the Psych Department, ran to the window to look out. What he saw was a cadet lying on the grass two floors down twitching. It was actually a cadet. As soon as the dummy hit the ground, they pulled it out of the way, and one of the staffers with pretty short hair jumped out and laid down on the grass. He was laughing so hard, he couldn't hold still, hence the twitching. The major who had run to the window, then turned and ran for the door, presumably to go help the poor suicidal bastard. We had to have him physically restrained by an NCO (who we had briefed) at the door. Later we would find out that the major from the psych dept was a grad whose roommate had taken a swan dive out the sixth floor window during his firstie year. The whole thing made for a great show, and we enjoyed it, but once we calmed everybody down and explained it, there was hell to pay. - (e-mail, 6-3-1999)