OLD CORPS GHOST STORIES

Well Bucky seems to think I am the only one who remembers the rumors about ghosts in the old Lost Forties, so I agreed to write down what I was told way back when. At the outset I must state that this was speculation twelve years ago, so after all this time who knows what the truth really is? So if any of you are thinking of suing me, remember: 1) I have no money 2) I know Scott “the Shark” Husing, prominent defense attorney, so you should be quite sure of your facts before initiating litigation.

Of course you know that 1985 was the largest class ever to graduate from West Point and that the whole Corps expanded at the same time. When we arrived on that wonderful day in July, 1981, there was a commensurate requirement for space within the barracks. This was where the problem began in the Lost Forties.

One of the rooms in our old company area had either been locked up or used as a study room since the seventies. This was because a ghost had been reported haunting that room when it was occupied by two Plebes. The Tac for G4 when we were Cows (CPT Bakken, ‘73; yes I had to look him up) is rumored to have been the cadet Company Commander of G4 at the time, which was also the company in whose area the ghost resided in those days. That room, uninhabited since the events of the seventies, was reopened as a room for cadets when our class arrived, and that was when the ghost sightings began again. These were usually momentary glimpses of an apparition in an Old Corps Full Dress uniform (identifiable by the exposed collar of the white shirt worn underneath the uniform) or a general feeling of uneasiness. These 1981 sightings were nothing, however, compared to the events which caused the room to be closed in the first place.

Back in the seventies the two smack heads who lived in the room reported to their sympathetic and supportive chain of command that the room was haunted. After they returned from the Cadet Counseling Clinic the chain of command was directed to figure out what was going on in that room. The Plebes described the apparition as a translucent human form wearing a Full Dress Grey uniform with an exposed white collar. The apparition did not speak or do much of anything and did not seem hostile or threatening.

That is, until the Company Commander and First Sergeant decided to demonstrate leadership and sleep in the “haunted” room. Remember, the Cadet CO was the Tac of G4 when we were there and Joe Stanjones, of our company, interviewed him about this. According to CPT Bakken, the ghost appeared to him and his First Sergeant that evening but was no longer the kinder, gentler ghost of the evenings before. In short, it told him and his First Sergeant to leave the room immediately and that dire consequences would result if they ever entered that room again in their lives. When Joe asked the Tac what the ghost had threatened to do, he answered, “I’ll never tell a living soul what that thing said it would do.”

And that’s why that room was sealed up until our gang of novitiates showed up at Hudson High. I was told after hearing these details that the room itself had been sealed after the ghost confrontation and that it was opened with the understanding that it would not be used as a cadet room. Just exactly which room it was is open to speculation.

I was also told at one time that one of our Hog company mates from Class of ‘84 actually saw the ghost. His name was T.J. Schneider and he didn’t seem to be the type to imagine things like this. He claimed to have seen an apparition very similar to the one described by other cadets, and of course his classmates felt they had to respond to this situation. Eric Belcher put on the white shirt from the White Over Grey uniform and then put on his Full Dress jacket over that so that the collar was showing. He then took camo stick and rubbed it around his eye sockets and covered his face with foot powder before hiding in T.J.’s wall locker. T.J.’s roommate was away at the time, so he was studying at his desk alone when Taps sounded. He turned off the overhead light but continued s tudying, prompting Eric to take matters into his own hands. He slid the wall locker door open with a loud thud, but this did not disturb his intended victim. So he walked across the room, very Dawn of the Dead- like, and dropped his hand onto T.J.’s shoulder.

The result was a scream of terror and, reportedly, a monumental, terror-induced, adrenalin-fed ass kicking. Both cases, in which the old CO and First Sergeant decided to sleep in the haunted room, and when Eric decided to scare T.J., in my opinion reflect rather glaringly poor judgment.

Send news stories, reminiscences, annecdotes, etc. about Hogs to Buck Surdu