#112 Army Week: Now vs Then

Why Army Week at the Naval Academy Becomes Pure Chaos Every December

Army Week has arrived at the Naval Academy, and if you've ever wondered what all the chaos and excitement is about, this episode pulls back the curtain on one of the most legendary weeks in Annapolis.

As someone who lived through the absolute mayhem of Army Week during my time as a midshipman, I'm sharing the inside story of what makes this week so special - and so completely wild. From the tactical pranks in King Hall to the elaborate spirit missions across the Yard, Army Week represents a unique tradition that has evolved significantly over the years.

What Makes Army Week So Legendary

• The historical context behind the week leading up to the Army-Navy game
• How Army Week differs from Air Force Week and why this rivalry runs deeper
• The three main areas where Army Week chaos unfolds: King Hall, Bancroft Hall, and the Yard
• Why this week has always been a time for creative midshipman expression

Army Week Then vs. Now

I'll walk you through some of the most memorable traditions from my era, including the infamous "Princess Leia" prank and the tactical escapes through King Hall. But I'm also addressing how things have changed - including the recent installation of security cameras throughout Bancroft Hall and updated standard operating procedures that govern what's allowed.

Stories You Won't Believe

• Epic chases through King Hall during meal times
• The strategic planning behind successful pranks and escape routes
• Creative spirit missions involving everything from alarm clocks to water balloons
• How plebes would get "carry on" privileges for the week

Modern Army Week Evolution

While some of the more destructive traditions have been phased out for safety and appropriateness, midshipmen continue finding creative ways t

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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. 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.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene And Purpose
• 0:33 What Army Week Means
• 2:55 Rivalry Context And Tone
• 5:12 King Hall Pranks Then And Now
• 12:40 Tactics, Escapes, And “Beat Army” Drinks
• 18:20 Rules, SOPs, And Consequences
• 22:49 Cameras In Bancroft And Culture Shift
• 26:39 “Protect The Deck” And Messy Escalations
• 34:09 Harmless Creativity Versus Crossing Lines

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right, please excuse the setup for today. I'm in the midst of a move. By the time you are listening to this episode, my wife is going to be home from deployment. So I'm I'm stoked and I'm doing everything in my power to get our new apartment ready for us as soon as she is back home. So all this stuff is going on. But it's also Army Week, baby. It's Army Week. And so I needed to record an episode and just give a rundown to the friends and family and everyone going on about a little bit of Army Week now versus then, right? And so again, the first topic that we're going to talk about is what is Army Week? You hear this a lot. What is Army Week? And at the end of the day, it is the week leading up to the Army Navy game. So again, this is releasing on a Sunday. The next Saturday is going to be the Army Navy game, December 13th in Baltimore, Maryland. So this week starting up, it starts on Sunday evening the week prior and goes all the way up into the game. It becomes Army Week. And again, at the end of the day, similar things were happening during Air Force Week. So if you saw any of the pranks that are happening, things that are going on, if you heard your midshipmen talking about some of these ridiculous things that were happening on the Naval Academy campus, that is a result of it being Army Week or excuse me, of Air Force Week or Army Week. But here's the reality, and we all know this. Again, I love all of my friends who are part of the Air Force Academy, but the Air Force Academy is kind of like it's it's the warm up, right? It's the warm up because Army Week is the week. This is the game. This is the big game. And so as a result, all the stuff that's going on in the Naval Academy campus is also happening this week. And to be very clear, and I want to be very clear about this, and again, there's going to be some changes from my time to what's going on now. This week is absolutely debaucherous. It is pure chaos. There is so much stuff that is going on on the Naval Academy campus around this time during Army Week. And again, there's there were some things during my time that were that were not appropriate, right? That were not appropriate whatsoever. And so there absolutely has been a change and a phasing out. I want to be very clear that as we're here today, and you see things happening during Army Week, there's absolutely no hostile intent, right? Like these things have developed and phased out over the years. But there's still going to be a lot of things that are going on that are just kind of ridiculous. You know, I remember my sponsor dad telling me stories of, you know, his plebes breaking out via the Ho Chi Minh trails, which are like the steam tunnels underneath the Naval Academy campus to get off campus and do spirit missions during Army Week. You know, there's a lot of stuff now that are both safety concerns and other things that are no longer happening. But I mean, this stuff has been going on for the history of the Naval Academy. As long as this Army Navy rivalry has been going on, so have the Army Week shenanigans and pranks, right? And so this is going to be, you know, a wildly interesting week. And again, I hope the purpose of this episode is to give you enough context to understand stories or hopefully ask questions to your midshipmen about some of the things that are going on in their company, if they've participated in any spirit missions, if anything has been happening, and hopefully get you some interesting insight and fun conversation about some of the ridiculous, cool aspects of Army Week at the Naval Academy. So, what makes Army Week different than any other league? And so there are kind of three main differences that we're going to talk about here, which is Army Week in King Hall, Army Week in Bancroft Hall, and then Army Week on the yard and surrounding the yard in general. And so we'll start with Army Week in King Hall. And so again, this is going to focus a little bit more back on what happened during my time, right? And so again, some of these things may be different. They may they may give you the opportunity to be like, hey, do you guys do this in King Hall? And again, a lot of the realities is probably not. Probably not. But you know, because at the end of the day, it was absolute shenanigans. And again, Army Week kind of had found its niche of giving plebes the opportunity to find creative ways. Yeah. To creative ways to maybe have fun with, poke fun with some of the upperclassmen that had really made their lives really miserable during plebe summer and plebe year. Right. And so they were always kind of coming up with creative ways to make that happen. And a lot of that happened in King Hall. So probably the most iconic piece of, you know, King Hall pranks and King Hall shenanigans during my time at the Naval Academy again, which was 2013 to 2017, was this idea of the Princess Leia. And so in Bancroft Hall, we have pretzel buns. And they're some of our favorites. You get a little cold cut on a, you know, on a day in King Hall, you get your cold cuts and you get a pretzel bun, and they're delicious. We love our pretzel buns in King Hall. But they also are like conveniently perfectly sliced down the middle. You got two ends of a bun. And so this idea of the Princess Leia is you would take a uh a pretzel bun, you would spread peanut butter on it on both sides, and then you would you would like sneak up to a midshipman, right? Like you would sneak up to the person that you're trying to hit, and then you would basically clamp the two ends of the pretzel bun over their ears. You would smash it right there. Like you would smash it on both of their ears. And because you had the peanut butter on there, the pretzel buns would stick. They would stick on their two ears, and it made it look like the Princess Leia buns from the Star Wars movie, right? Hence the name, the Princess Leia. Because once you would put the pretzel buns on their ears, those suckers would be stuck and they'd be right on your ears, and they'd be covered and they look like Princess Leia buns, right? And so that was kind of the iconic prank during, you know, during during my time during Argon Week and King Paul. I know that these are these are no longer allowed. The Princess Leia is banned, and again, uh rightly so. But again, Machimon will always find creative ways to find new things, to have things that were going on. Now, one of the really exciting pieces about this, which I absolutely love too, was that these, if you if you got Princess Lead, or you got what we call a wild man. So this was another one, you know, you had the Princess Lee Cal Wild Man, where people would take like a pitcher of water, right? The pictures that we have on the table. And as soon as you got Princess Laia, boom, you got Princess Lai. You know, they'd come in and then they basically like throw an entire pitcher of water, pitcher of water on you as well. And that was a wild man. And these activities would lead to like literal pursuits, like literal chases through through King Hall. Because if you were an upperclassman and the plebs got you, then then you had no other, no other choice but to try and get them back and like try and catch them for what had happened. And so again, Army Week was had become such a planned out tactical event because you would have to know who you were trying to hit and you had to find an escape route. Because the lore was back in my time was if you conducted a pranking in in King Hall, like you were gonna Princess Lay someone, you were gonna waterban someone, if you made it back to your deck in Bancroft Hall, if you made it back to your room without getting like physically detained by the upper class midshipmen, then you got away with it, right? Like that was it. Then that was it. When we we go on to live another day, you did a great, like you you got the prank and you escaped, like you're all good. But if you got caught, well, then if you got caught, then then things weren't necessarily gonna go in your favor, right? Like potentially, again, the upper classman could mess with you, or you could potentially end up in conduct action, something like that. Again, I believe that has changed, which is like if you were to do something like that, if you were to do a prank in King Hall and like actually Prince Slave someone or dump water on someone, it don't matter if you make it back. It doesn't matter if you make it back to Bancroft Hall. You're probably gonna get into some conduct trouble. But again, because you had these like takeoffs where if you made it back, dude, it was like literal pursuits through King Hall. You would like it, it was just such a spectacle to be in King Hall during my time because like you would see like someone again, Princess Leia, an upper class midshipment, and they would start taking off, like sprinting through Bancroft Hall. And you would hear the like the screeches of the chairs like pushing out against the floor because the upper class like knew like this was his chance to catch a queen who had just Princess Leia in them. And so you would hear that, and then you would you would it was like the ripple effect, it's the wave effect, right? Because everyone immediately around them would like start to stand up and go, whoa, and like start cheering, and then as a result, that would like go all the way through you know, King Hall until everyone was like standing on their chairs, looking to see what was happening, seeing plebe sprint through uh King Hall and being chased completely in pursuit by some of the upper class midship. And so you always had again, you had to be tactful, you had to find again, these were things that you had to be really smart about, which is like you're you know, you wanted to find an upper class midship that was sitting in an like in an actual aisle, like at the head of the table. So that way you could you could hit and you could run, right? Like you need you needed an ability to like actually execute and leave immediately. And so, you know, you were trying to find those people, you would normally have plebes, you know, some of your classmates standing by a door because one of the things that made the egress most difficult is those king hall doors aren't like super easy to open, right? So you would like sprint, you'd have a couple you know, feet head start, you'd hit that door and you'd be like trying to push it open, and and you were stuck, and that was a bad day. So you would start to have some of your like friends and plebes like you would plan your escape route. You knew where you're gonna hit, you knew where you're gonna run out, you'd have some plebes preset over there to get the doors opened up and get on your way. So that was always a really interesting time. And then for me, as a thirsty, first being a firstie in King Hall is pure anxiety, man. Pure, pure anxiety, because like you're just your head's always on a swivel. You know, you never know what's gonna happen. And again, for me, my reality is I was the regimental commander in plebe summer, so like every plebe knew who I was. You know what I mean? Like, every plebe was like trying to get an opportunity to do something to the regimental commander. And so, yeah, that that first year plead, first year Army Week for me was crazy. I got I got hit with the Princess Leia uh once or twice. I got a couple of water jugs dumped on me. You know, I like to think that this was a a positive thing for me. That like, you know, because it was it was a couple of the dudes on the basketball team that got me specifically. So, you know, I'm hoping it's because people didn't hate me, but you know, we'll we'll see. But anyway, it it was always a pretty like wild time. Again, you had the Princess Leahs, you had the Wild Mans. You know, I was talking to my sponsor dad about Army Week and everything that goes on. He said, you know, during his time, they used to, again, it's uh it's a lot of pranks involving peanut butter, to be honest. You know, they would they would like find the upperclassmen and basically start army crawling underneath all the chairs with peanut butter, like and then try and make their way and go unnoticed and start to like layer peanut butter on their freshly polished shoes, which would you know usually mess up, mess up the polish. And you know, there's just again a lot of shenanigans going on. You know, some of the things that you know were also happening that were less like prank to an individual. If you've ever been to a Navy football game, you know that during some of the breaks, like during the media timeouts, they have the crab race. They put up on the big Jumbotron, there's a red crab, a green crab, and a blue crab, and they're all racing, right? And so I've seen lots of stuff like that where like during King Hall, Simmonship will dress up as a red crab, blue crab, and green crab and start like, you know, clawing and racing their way through King Hall and getting everybody involved and ingrained in everything that's going on. Super fun. I've heard of like Mario Kart races, people dressing up as like Mario Kart and staging a Mario Kart race through King Hall during Army Week. And so I think again, as we start to see that, we will start to see a lot of pranks that less become like pranks onto an individual and more stuff that is just like positive and supporting, like an entertaining time without an individual, you know, being being the subject, being the result of a prank and kind of messing up uniforms, potentially hurting somebody, right? And so all that stuff I think has started to phase away. But anyway, that's like some of the stuff that was going on in King Hall. The last piece of King Hall that I want to bring up was a drink called a beat army, right? And so a lot of times during Army Week, plebes would try and create the most atrocious concoctions of all time and call it the beat army, right? Like that was the drink. And again, you would see some disgusting stuff, like plebs missed milking milk and tobasco and water and you know, some of this of this other disgusting stuff to create this just like absolutely atrocious, like purely nauseating concoction. And it was a source of pride, like who could almost create the most disgusting drink of all time, and then chug it. And then chug it. You would you would stand up on your chair, you'd yell, be army, and then you'd chug it, and everyone would go crazy for you, they'd cheer for you, and you put it down, and you'd probably not feel great after that. But you know, such are the things that are happening in King Hall. So that's kind of the the King Hall rundown during Army Week. Again, a lot of this stuff was from by time. You know, I would encourage you to ask your shipment about what is currently happening. You know, ask him if there have been any funny things happening in King Hall. What are the rules and regulations? Because this is actually before we jump into Bancroft Hall, this is an interesting, interesting piece piece to touch on. Is that now during Army Weeks, there are literal SOPs. There are standard operating procedures. Like there is documentation from the Naval Academy leadership from the Commonon down about what is allowed during plebe or during Army Week and what is not allowed during Army Week. And so this has become a much more regulated event and evolution on the yard. And so, you know, your midshipment will likely have very clear guidance on what is allowed and what is not allowed. Will that stop midshipmen from doing what is not allowed? No, probably not. Probably not. But again, we've talked about this, and someone made a comment on the Academy of Center Facebook page the other day about talking about the term rate what you skate and like having used that to their midshipment. And I love it. And this is another perfect example, which is like, you may know certain pranks are against the rules. Well, you know, you can still do them. You can still do them, but again, but if you get caught, you get you rate what you skate, right? And if you get caught, you're probably gonna get in trouble, right? And so those are the things that are going on right now, and that becomes extra interesting this year because they have just completed through the entirety of Bancroft Hall. And for all my old grads, if there are any grads who are listening to this right now, you're gonna kind of you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is like this is happening. And like, thank God this is not here when we were there. They have just completed the installation of security cameras throughout the entirety of Bancroft Hall. Now, on every single deck, there are security cameras in Bancroft Hall. Again, I have to imagine a big piece of that was unfortunately what happened in Bancroft Hall this year. Uh, you know, with with the shooting and the, you know, kind of the mass chaos around the suspected at that time. Again, the the thought that there may have been, you know, an active shooter on the Naval Academy campus. And so as a result, there are going to be security cameras through all of Bancroft Hall, right? And that is really interesting because we talked about some of these pranks in Bancroft Hall. Well, now you can't do them in the anonymity of night. You know what I mean? Like, there's no like if you're if you're good and you're successful and you you execute on these pranks and then you wake up the next morning and nobody knew who it was, you're okay. That's not the case anymore. I don't know. Again, here's my thing. I don't know if like the midshipman leadership, like against like the officer staff are gonna go back and review security footage for like pranks that have been done. Again, I'm sure if something is egregious enough enough, of course they would, but I don't I don't know like the threshold. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know if they're gonna be going through and reviewing security take to like take conduct action upon midshipmen who do things. It could be yes, it could be no. I actually have no idea. All I know is there are now security cameras in Bancroft Hall compared to when I was a midshipmen, there were not, right? And so that is the big difference. Because in Bancroft Hall during Army Week, things, again, during my time got so crazy, right? And again, the the first things that are probably still likely the same is that the plebes will get carry-on for the week. And again, carry-on is basically this idea that you no longer have to adhere by the plea, again, the majority of plebe restrictions, right? If you have carry-on for the week, you no longer have to chop through Bancroft Hall. Again, you are relieved of some of those things that you are required to do as a plebe. You would rate media, right? Like you again, during my time, we that included listening to music, watching, you know, TV movies, etc. So you had that ability and opportunity, you know, no, no civilian clothes or anything like that. But a lot of the daily plebisms, you were allowed to kind of do that. And then there was also going to be no pronoun no pro knowledge, no professional knowledge quiz that week, right? So you had those kind of basics of what was going on in Bancroft's Hall for Army Week, but that was, you know, just a small piece of it. Because what we really want to know about is like what's actually happening in Bancroft's hall. What are these pranks? And things to get really creative, and things would also get really messy, right? And again, this is where things, uh, in my opinion, probably got a little out of control, but it also made like some of these stories, some of these memories for me. Like as I tell these stories about Army Weekly, it's just like it, it's an iconic piece of my Naval Academy experience, right? Like it's such ingrained, burned-in memories of this experience in Annapolis. Because I remember it was Sunday night. It was Sunday night at our blue and gold meeting. And, you know, our upper class midshipmen had all the plebs in the hall, and they just gave this like brave heart-esque speech. You know what I mean? Like, never again, since plebe summer, I had never seen them be so serious and motivational since plebe summer. And again, now we're in December, and you know, our upper class, they're they're giving us a speech and they're telling us like, you need to protect this deck. Like, whatever you do, you need to protect this deck against whatever pranks, whatever craziness other companies are gonna plan on bringing to 26th company. And again, at the time, we were on 8-0. We're in eighth wing on the zero deck. So we had the bottom floor, so people could be like coming downhill at us. And so I just remember like I was like, what is gonna what's gonna happen? Like, what's happening? Like, why are our midshipmen, like, why are the firstsies giving us this crazy talk, right? Like this absolutely crazy talk about stuff that that may be going on. And uh it turns out, because literally on the first night, there there was a brawl. Like there was a brawl in King Hall, or not in King Hall, in in Bancroft Hall, because there were there were like midshipmen from companies above us that were trying to come down and throw like throw shaking cream bombs and like doing all this stuff, like throwing spoiled foods and stuff onto the deck, you know, like doing crazy things. At what at one point, literally, even, and again, this is the stuff like this is the crazy stuff that happens in Annapolis, right? There had been midshipmen in some of the companies above us who had been taking milk every day from King Hall. We because we would get you would get like the little, you know, like eight ounce bottles of milk. They were taking the milk from King Hall every single day. For the entire semester, every single day for the entire semester, bringing it back and putting it in their ceiling. Right. And so by the time it got to Army Week, they had hundreds of bottles of just absolutely spoiled milk. And what had happened, again, because there's like a service elevator that runs in Bancroft Hall as well, they literally filled up an entire like trash bin full of spoiled milk. And then they put that trash bin in the service elevator, sent it down to our floor. It opened up. And as soon as it opened up, they had like propped it up. They, as soon as the doors opened, it just like dumped and spilled all throughout our floor. And it was just like, it was disgusting. Just absolutely disgusting. And so again, these were the things, but these are the things that our upper class midshipmen knew were gonna happen. Like this is what they were trying to prevent. Like these are the things that they were trying to protect us of, right? And you know, we received very clear direction from our class midshipment to like not allow any of this stuff happen, to like to protect the deck, right? And so all that stuff was just like so interesting. Again, that led to some destruction of property. That led to probably some injury, right? Is like plebes were literally in like physical altercations trying to prevent. Again, people weren't like necessarily throwing punches at each other, but like there was a lot of like wrestling and grappling and trying to get preventing people from showing up on your deck and and conducting pranks, right? And so again, as a result, a lot of that stuff is very likely no longer allowed. And if anything like that would happen, it would probably lead to some very serious conduct action. So anyway, those are those are probably the parts of the pranks that like, you know, no longer are allowed. You know, there was also a lot of individual pranks. So again, a lot of this was like protecting your company versus other company, but there were still pranks that like the plebes would conduct against their upper class mid shipmen. You know, there were a couple times, probably my personal favorite is, you know, our training sergeant for the year, or I guess the training officer, I think, you know, he was he was someone that we really respected, but he was also really tough on us. And so we're like, what can we do to, you know, kind of mess with him a little bit this week? So every plebe in our company chipped in and bought one alarm clock, right? Like we went down to the midstore and we bought one alarm clock. And while he was out of his room, we had, as a plebe class, we had gone through and set the alarms for a different time on like 10-minute intervals for the entirety of the night, right? Like we had one alarm that was gonna go off at like 1210 and then 1220, 12:30, 1240, all the way until like 6 a.m., right? Like we had kind of covered that like 36 to 40, you know, 10-minute increments throughout the entirety of the night, and we hid that throughout the entirety of the room in the ceilings, in the bathroom, under like under desks, just like everywhere you couldn't find him. So literally for the entirety of the night, there was a new alarm clock going off like every 10 minutes at some place in his room. And you know, I always thought that one was creative, obviously messing with a dude's sleep, you know, not ideal, but I thought that one was like relatively harmless and pretty, pretty funny, honestly. I was like, that was just a creative one. Like that was so creative for all of us to kind of come together, make all that happen. You know, there was another one, probably one of my one of my personal favorites. And again, a lot of this stuff ended like with hugs. Like, I don't know, like there's just like a weird distinction here. And obviously, there's such a fine line in this, right? There's such a fine line, but it was really interesting because again, at least within 26 company, when I was there, like our upperclassmen encouraged it. Like they it was part of the process that they had arrived at the time to be at the subject of the pranks, and they felt it almost as a source of like pride, right? Like it was a really interesting dynamic. And every like once a prank happened, they would like laugh and give us a big hug and be like, that was really good, right? Like that was good. Like, good on you guys. And so, one of those for us as well, at about 2 a.m., we'd blast it. And if you've listened to the Academy Insider Podcast before, you know that there's this song from Cleep Summer that is just burned into my mind, the best friend song by Toy Box. It was what they woke us up to every single morning during Cleep Summer. And it's just an atrocious song. So at about 2 a.m. on Army Week, we started blast, blasting that song on, you know, out of some like portable speakers in front of an upperclassman's room. And the upperclassman, I'm sure, thought that was the prank. So they like opened up their door and like come out into the hall to like yell at us and tell us to turn it off. And as soon as they walked out of the door, turns out that the plebs had filled up about a hundred water balloons and were ready to go. So the moment he stepped out of the room to like tell us to turn off the music, all the plebs just started throwing water balloons at him and hit him with about a hundred water balloons right there at 2 a.m. And uh man, yeah, just I mean, just so much stuff going on. You know, one thing that was big during my time as well was you know, putting putting upper class midshipmen like in the shower, right? Like actually taking them in their uniform and kind of kind of carrying them in, putting in the shower. Funny enough, I actually saw some videos of that happening this year during Army Week. Turns out the people who are involved with that ended up into conduct trouble. So I'm sure we won't see that during Army Week. Again, probably not recommended. You know, again, as I'm telling you guys these stories, it is not an encouragement to do things that will get you in trouble. My goal here is to talk to you guys as families and as parents to understand the context of the Naval Academy journey, what has happened, what is you know phased out, what continues, what the context and background is, what things have been passed down over the years from generation to generation, and hopefully allow you to have the context, education, perspective, and understanding to ask good questions and figure out what's going on. And even though some of the things may be different, the commonalities, the themes, the absurdity of Army Week, I'm sure will continue on. And midshipmen are so good at finding creative ways to implement that in a new way. So that is really, really good. All right. Army week on the yard. So again, a lot of that's um the Bancroft Hall stuff. I'm sure there's more things that I could talk about. There's probably not enough time here. So we're gonna go into Army Week on the Yard. So on the yard during Army Week, there will be a literal spirit rally. You know, like uh it's um yeah, it's a spirit rally. That's the right word to put it. And it's actually a really good time. Like they host a big party, there's music, there's dancing, there's food, they bring in a bunch of food vendors and stuff to like provide stuff for the midshipmen. I know in the past that we've there's literally been like a bonfire in the shape of a mule, and they like burn the mule, right? And a lot of stuff that's going on now, the football team come out and give some talks, right? So there's a big spirit rally, you know, on the yard, and that's you know, decently a good time. Like really, really enjoyable, fun way for all of us to get out there and have a little bit of camaraderie on the side. Another interesting piece is there's usually intramural competitions against West Point leading up to the game. Like they'll kind of bring down there's a lot of West Point influence in Annapolis and vice versa during the week. And there's going to be a lot of intramural competitions happening as well leading up to the game. So lots of fun stuff going on. And then there's big time spirit missions, right? So a lot of the stuff that we talked about are like these pranks that are happening in King Hall and Bancroft Hall. But you still see stuff all the time. Like, again, there there are stories as old as old as time of like midshipmen going up to West Point, New York during the week and like stealing an army mule. There are things that go back as far as time as like midshipmen flying planes and dropping ping pong balls and like other things over the West Point campus. You know, you'll see pictures on the yard of like from obscure places. And I think one literally got put up on the chapel dome a couple years ago. But you see stuff like on Bancroft Hall on Rick over in the library and different buildings through the Naval Academy campus, like big banners, like they'll paint some big banners and go hang them up in crazy places across the yard. You may see sailboats get moved from actually in the basin toward like to sit on stribling walk. Like there are different things. I've seen, you know, weight racks, right? Like where you would do squats or bench press, like get moved into Bancroft Hall or put into, you know, like on a stribling walk. I'm pretty sure one of these previous years they like put a rack in there and they like had the shipmen, you know, do some SWATs and bench press like before they made their way to class and documented it, right? Like there's a lot of stuff that is going on that is very cool during Army Week, right? And so all this stuff is happening, all this stuff is going on. It's really interesting, right? So, what's it like now, right? You know, a lot of this stuff, things will be different, things will change. Some stuff may be really interesting, but I've seen some really funny stuff. I've seen some really funny stuff from you know, this current wave. Again, not stuff that necessarily happened this year. I think it's happened, you know, in a year or two, a couple of years past. But there's a lot of stuff that that is that has happened. There's stuff that I've seen where I know Army Week is still alive and well, and midshipmen continue to find ways to be creative, and in my opinion, in a healthier, less destructive banner, right? And I think that's a that's a great thing, right? But I've seen I've seen some racks, like again, actual beds. I've seen racks get put in ceilings, I've seen guidons in the Severn River, like people stole guidons from other companies and planted it, you know, in in the Severn River. I've seen I've seen pictures of like jellyfish in an upperclassman's sink. I've seen like a vending machine moved like into different places. I've seen lots of crazy stuff. The brigade's commander's car at one point had been parked in T court and just left there. Like, again, there was some stuff happening that I think is just like, you know, finding creative ways to still find the spirit to conduct spirit missions, but in a way that is less destructive, less unhealthy. And I think that's been a really positive thing that that's kind of going on in Annapolis. So that's gonna wrap it up for us. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope it provides a little bit of context into this idea of Army Week. Again, this pure five to six days of absolute shenanigans that's gonna be happening in Annapolis. I hope it provides you enough context to ask some fun questions and see what's going on in your world. I hope you enjoy it. Again, some of this stuff, you know, if you plead tells you some stuff, I I wouldn't, I wouldn't post about it. I look, look, if we're we're all calling a spade a spade here, like, you know, I know you want to be in the loop, but just like, you know, again, at a certain point, all I want to do in this and with this podcast and and with this is again perspective, context, and understanding. Just getting an understanding of what's happening, provide some, you know, background into what's going on so that way you can foster better relationships and better conversations with your midshipmen. So hope that's fun. Enjoy it. Go Navy, beat Army. I can't wait to tune in next week, the 13th, to watch an incredibly football game. And shout out to, again, shout out to the Naval Academy football team, shout out to Blake Horbath specifically, you know, being being named as a candidate for the Heisman. That's just unbelievable. Landon Robinson for winning Defensive Player of the Year in the American Conference, and and so many players with you know real honors for what they've done, you know, on the on the football field this year. So, congratulations to the whole team. Super excited to tune in and watch on the 13th. Thank you all so much, and I hope you have a great day. 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.