Hey everyone! My name is Taylor and this is my not so safe for work diary of my life as a cadet at a Senior Military College. I apologize if this starts a little slow, but I need to get a few things out of the way before we can "skip to the good part" (;
First of all, this is a diary of an actual girl (me!) And her actual experiences navigating dating and having a sex life in one of the most restrictive College environments in the country. I'm by no means a porn star, nor the fantasy girl who goes from meeting a boy to all night anal orgy whatevers in just 1 night. That's not a thing....that's good selling porn lol. If that's what you're looking for, this isn't the story for you and that's okay. But, if you'd like a peak behind the curtain and read about one girl's experience navigating this complex work of Military College life, then cum on and follow me, it'll probably be quirky and occasionally nerdy, but you may even enjoy the read!
First and foremost, no I won't be sharing photos of myself, for the obvious reason that I'll be detailing how I continue to break school rules that could lead to severe suspensions and effect my life outside of reddit. But I promise to try to be as descriptive as possible! If I leave out a detail that you'd like me to describe, let me know and I'll be happy to share! Secondly, I will not be naming my college explicitly to avoid my story popping up when someone searches my school name in reddit. It's a small, Senior Military College nestled in the Blue Ridge, there are no civilian students at my college, and our mascot is a kangaroo. If you can't figure out where I go from that, Google harder.
So here we go! Like I said, my name is Taylor and I'm 20 years old, getting ready to start my junior (2nd Class) year at one of the Country's 6 Senior Military Colleges. I run cross country and track for my college and am studying to be a civil engineer. I have no aspirations of joining thr Military, which is a common thing here. What differentiates us from an academy like West Point or Annapolis is the fact that although we all lead the military college lifestyle, only about half of the student body at a Senior Military College will actually join the military at graduation. For me, this journey has been an opportunity to continue to run at the collegiate level, pursue a unique college experience in a highly sought after civil engineering program, with a tremendously supportive alumni network to help me pursue a career as a civil engineer in USACE. I'm 5'4 and about 120lbs. I've got a slender build and running has toned my body. I've got thick curly brown hair that I keep just below my shoulders and when I'm not at practice wearing contacts, I tend to go for my favorite black oval frame glasses.
My journey started on a hot day in early August when I reported to Post (campus) for athletes early report period...roughly 2 weeks before the start of the 9 day indoctrination period that kicks off freshman year that is a crash course in military life at the college, and sets the foundation for the rest of the training we experience along side college classes the first semester plus a few weeks of freshman year. I was met by my assistant coach at the front of an impossibly large stone barracks overlooking a massive green oval parade field. Coach Matt guided my parents and I through one of the 4 wide archways that are the only breaks in the rows of widowed rooms, stacked 4 floors high resembling a castle more than a barracks, with turrets at the corners and towers reaching a 5th floor in impressive towers over the archways.
The archway opens to one of 3 massive open courtyards, with all of the doors facing into the courtyard along wide open air concrete walkways with a metal railing to keep you from falling 4 floors to the grass below. I was met by a cadet dressed in the all white summer class uniform of white pants, short sleeve white button-down shirt with a name tag and grey shoulder boards denoting his standing as a 2nd Classman (junior). He politely welcomed my family and I and consulted a massive list of room assignments before guiding me through an inner arch toward the middle of the 3 courtyards, this one a narrow rectangle vs the wide grassy square of the first, with all stone on the floor and no grass, and a stairway at either end, taking me from landing to landing up to my new home on the 4th floor.
I was pleasantly suprised to find myself assigned to a room in the far corner on the front side, within one of the turrets, adding to the feel that I was living in a castle. I walked through the door, that has a 9-pane window in the top half, with a shade that you pull down only when changing, and faced down the narrow entryway that had a rack for our ceremonial rifles and hooks to hang our towels on, before the room opened up to a small honeycomb shaped space on the turret of the castle-barracks. As I rounded the corner, there was a small sink with glass shelves on the wall to hold our toothbrushes and toothpaste. The bathroom and showers for our floor were on the long wall of the courtyard, between ours and the 3rd barracks area.
There were 3 desks facing eachother with a wooden shelf to hold common supplies along the side of the 2 desks, making a 3 part island in the center of the room. Along 2 of the honeycomb walls were 2 massive wooden wall lockers, with no front on them where we would hang our uniforms and store our clothes in a precisely prescribed manner. In the corner we're 2 wooden cots that we could lay down and spread our mattress over in the evening, but had to be folded against the wall otherwise to allow free movement around the cramped spaces of the small turret room. Rounding out the features of my humble abode were
two tall windows, cut into the sides of the turret which gave a view out over the parade field as well as down the front side of the rooms of our courtyard and the one we had entered in out of one window, and towards the rooms surrounding the 3rd courtyard and senior faculty housing out of the other. Overall the room was small and between the lack of doors on your "closet" aka wall locker, and the glass window into your room on the door, there was a distinct feel that your privacy wasn't nearly as important as the administration's ability to ensure you follow the rules at all times, typical and expected out of a military college.
Quickly I got myself moved in, all I had was a footlocker and a suitcase of the items I was told to pack, and then bid my parents goodbye as I started my flurry of in-processing tasks to complete for both the school and NCAA before the rest of my freshman class arrived for matriculation day and the start of our full indoctrination into life at military college. I lived a fairly structured yet relaxed life. Eat meals at these times, practice is at these times (aka some of the hardest workouts I had ever experienced, definitely a transition from HS to college running) and a myriad of uniform fittings and measurements for the no less than 6 different complete uniforms with innumerable variations and accessories ranging from simple workout uniforms of grey tshirt and black shorts to the full dress uniform or white pants and tailored grey wool coat with rows of gold buttons on the chest and everything in between. There would be no more civilian clothes until it was time to go home on Thanksgiving and Christmas leave periods. Until then...uniformity is the name of the game.
Matriculation day came and I met my roommate for the next year (going on our 3rd year now). Julie is a biology major from the west coast. She's a little taller than me with straight black hair and a similar build to me. We had a few minutes to chat as I helped her move in all her stuff to the room I'd been living in for the last 2 weeks, took a moment to tell her everything I'd learned about the quirks of our new space before the chaos began later this afternoon and then I walked with her and her parents to the basketball arena to say our goodbyes to families. After a few brief speeches, we got called down to the floor to form by the companies listed on our name tags and then it all began.
The next 9 days of craziness kicked off with a long slow march up the hill, into the middle courtyard with our room high above and then silence. Drums start, cadets in grey wool jackets march in and after 1 final short speech from a cadet high above leaning over the railing, the yelling begins. In a blur of controlled chaos, 3 different cadets have come and told me to do 3 separate things and then disappeared in a flash. The next 9 days pass in a blur of learning to march, learning to wear a myriad of uniforms, how to make our room look like the picture in the alien document known as the Blue Book with precise instructions of how to do everything from how to place your toothbrush on the shelf to how to fold your underwear and efficiently stow it in the drawer between rolled socks and a stack of white tshirts. Between that, lots of impromptu workouts, memorizing all sorts of knowledge freshman have to recite on call and just trying to make it hour to hour, and oh yeah, collegiate cross country practice 7 out of the 9 days, I was absolutely exhausted when we finally reached the end and we got to the Monday that oh yeah, we go to college, time to start classes now.