Life Before Linton Hall

Before I got sent to Linton Hall, I had attended both a private school and public school (both day schools.) I had also been to summer camp for a couple of summers (probably ages 8, 9, 10.) This wasn't Camp Linton, but another summer camp.

Just like others whose stay at LH was relatively short (2 or 3 years) I can compare Linton Hall to other schools. My memories of those schools, as well as those of high school, are generally positive. There were small imperfections, some things that could have been better, but even so I felt that the principal and teachers had our best intentions at heart. It is because I saw what other schools were like, and because Linton Hall had the potential to be as good as the other schools, that I found my overall experience at Linton Hall to be negative.

This is how Linton Hall Military School during the 1960s compared to other schools:

Academics:
Upon entering Linton Hall I found it just as challenging as my previous schools, and academic standards were such that I needed to do as much or more work to do well. The quality of the teachers was similar. Linton Hall had some really good ones. I have to give credit where it is due and Sister Mary David was a really good Math and Science teacher and Sister Gertrude taught English and History well. They knew their material and had high expectations. There are probably others but I don't remember their names. After graduating from Linton Hall I had a normal transition into ninth grade, meaning that I was well prepared.

Of course, part of the credit belongs to me for doing the work and for taking advantage of second study hour, in spite of the fact that when I was in the eighth grade the prefect of my dorm did her utmost to discourage officers from going to second study hour, since the dorm became a wild zoo in the officers' absence. I am proud of being able to resist her pressure and making my academics a priority.

Food:
At private school it was really good, almost like home made. At public elementary school and high school it was similar to Linton Hall's, the standard school lunch. In elementary school (just like at LH) everyone from grades K to 6th got the same amount, which meant that the older kids didn't get quite enough and the younger ones got too much and had to be coaxed into eating everything. The big difference, of course, was that at day school I ate only five meals a week in the school cafeteria, and at Linton Hall it was every meal.

I did eat every meal at summer camp, but the summer camp was run by the same private school I attended during the school year, and the food was goog and there was always more than enough.

Homesickness:
Summer camp lasted probably four weeks, and we were allowed visits from parents for a few hours on Sundays (maybe 1 out of 3 or 1 out of 4 kids had their parents visit on any Sunday.) I was probably 8 the first year I went there, knew a few (maybe 1 out of 5) kids when I arrived and the school principal ran the camp so I wasn't a total stranger. The kids were probably ages 7 to 12, but I don't remember any one of them crying from homesickness. I'm sure they missed their parents just as much as the boys at Linton Hall, but camp was a good, fun place. At LH quite a few of the kids cried from homesickness especially at the beginning of the year.

Mail Censorship:
We could not make or receive phone calls at camp, but we did send and receive letters from home. We wrote the letters and gave them, sealed, to be mailed out. Occasionally one of the adults would tell us, "when you write home tell your parents that Miss Smith says hello" but we would have been utterly shocked if any adult had asked us to leave letters unsealed or if any inbound letters had been opened.

At Linton Hall, we were told to leave letters to be mailed unsealed, purportedly so that if Sister Mary David needed to send a note home, she could insert it in the envelope without paying extra postage. In fact, the true reason was so that letters could be read and, if something negative was being sent about the school, the letter would not be mailed out. Sister Mary David actually admitted this to a classroom full of cadets, when she said that a certain cadet wrote that we went on very long hikes. One of his legs was maybe two inches shorter than the other and one of his boots was specially modified with a very thick sole. He had said that the hikes were a certain number of miles (I don't remember the exact number but he had overestimated.) So she readily admitted that she had thrown the letter away instead of mailing it.

I did hint at some things in my letters without being too critical, and those letters did get through. I don't know whether any of my letters were unmailed. I do have a letter in which I wrote my grades in percentages, and a letter grade was written next to each one. The letters were in pencil (my letter was written in pen) and in a handwriting that was neither mine or that of my parents.

You might be wondering about the Mexicans, who wrote their letters in Spanish. Sister Mary David said that she spoke Spanish. I don't know how well she spoke it or whether she was just bluffing. In addition to the Spanish speakers we did have one cadet from South Korea and another from Iran. I would have loved to read Mary David's mind when she came upon a letter with foreign characters followed by "Mary David" followed by more foreign writing. Was she going crazy wondering whether something positive or negative was being said about her?

Running away
Running away from camp never even crossed our mind. Are you kidding? It was a lot of fun.
At Linton Hall, many of us (myself included) spent a lot of time fantasizing about the perfect escape. A few tried it, placing themselves at great danger, preferring to take chances instead of putting up with Linton Hall.

Personal care
At private school we wore uniforms, and at camp we had to make our beds and brush our teeth.
But there was none of the pickiness about doing things in a defined, precise way as at Linton Hall.

Punishment
Much of what was a punishable offense at Linton Hall (running indoors, yelling, etc.) were considered minor breaches of etiquette at school and camp. We were told not to do it, stopped doing it, and that was it.
For more serious offenses we might have been made to stand in the corner for 15 minutes during recess, or for even greater infractions, sent to the principal's office, who would give us a stern lecture and threaten to tell our parents if we did it again.
In all my years at elementary school I remember children being spanked on the bottom a couple of times with a bare hand, and there was one time wehn someone had his mouth washed out with soap (this was a last resort after multiple offenses.)
I will not re-state here all the physical punishments that were used at Linton Hall. An exhaustive list was written by another blogger, lhmscadet.wordpress.com.

Bedwetting
Children sometimes have "accidents," especially the younger ones. When children peed or pooped their pants, which happened a few times in kindergarden, an adult would take them to a bathroom that was just like a bathroom at home, with bathtub and shower, and let them wash themselves. They then would be provided with something "on loan" to wear while whatever they had soilded would be put in the washer. If the accident happened early in their day, they would go home wearing their own clean clothes. If it happened later, one of the teachers would tell the parent what had happened (in a very understanding way) or would send a note home with the kid, if the kid went home on the school bus. The most important thing is that if any of the kids tried to make fun of the child who had an accident (as little kids are prone to do) the teacher would have told him/her in a stern voice not to do it, and explained the golden rule.

There was a girl who peed herself quite often on the bus on the way to school, but not on the way home, which makes me think that the problem had to do with her being made to consume too much liquid at breakfast. Understandably, no one wanted to sit next to her, and occasionally one child would make fun of her, but most of us were mature enough to pretend nothing had happened.

Contrast that to how bedwetters at Linton hall were publicly shamed and embarrassed by being forced to wear the wet pajama bottoms around their neck all day, in a way that other cadets were pretty much encouraged to tease them, all in full view and with the full knowledge of every single adult (teachers, dorm and playground prefects, Commandant, Bill, and principal Sister Mary David.)

Girls (and the lack thereof)
Both of the elementary schools I attended before Linton Hall, as well as summer camp, were co-ed. Of course the younger years are a time when boys have their own games and activities (toy cars, toy guns -- which were considered okay at that time, building forts and treehouses and so on) which are quite different than those of girls (playing with dolls, playing house, etc.) This was especially so back then. So we weren't interacting with girls constantly, although there were games such as tag which we both found enjoyable.

I think for many of us the lack of girls made us shy and awkward around them. It did for me. Only those who were in an all boys school can feel the pain I felt when I would get a letter from a friend on the "outside" who told me about playing spin the bottle or some other kissing game, and there I was, not having ever even called a girl on the phone under the guise of asking a question about homework.

Showers
We didn't shower at day school, but we did at camp. We showered one at a time, and never did any adult male or female even come in, much less stand there watching the whole time.
I do understand the need to supervise group showers; I have read of instances in juvenile detention facilities where (forgive me for being so blunt but I have to say this) rape by someone of the same sex, sometimes with a broomstick or bottle, happens in both all-boy and all-girl facilities. So I accept that the slim possibility of something so awful justified some supervision. But I think there were other, better ways of doing it.

First of all, the architect could have designed individual shower stalls. I understand that the building was built in the early part of the 20th century, when attitudes about privacy, nudity and sex were different.

We could have showered in swim trunks, and only pulled them down a bit, while turning our back to the nun, while washing our private parts.

We could have had the Commandant and Bill supervise showers. These were men who could be trusted. I know it would have meant extra work for them, and that they would not have been eager to go back to Linton Hall in the evening to supervise showers. Perhaps we could have showered immediately after school to make it more convenient for the Commandantand Bill.

If nothing else, the nuns didn't really need to be standing there looking for the whole time. They could just stood in the changing area, and occasionally have taken a look out of the corner of their eye. But they did not, and the fact that they never missed the opportunity to supervise the showers, while having a hands-off attitude about anything else that went on in the dorm, makes me wonder about their true motivations. Some may have been uncomfortable doing this, but if that had been the case I would have expected them, at a minimum, to avert their eyes and not stare directly.

I should add to what I said about juvenile detention facilities. Whatever can happen in the shower can happen at night in the dorm. One former cadet has written on my Facebook wall about being beaten up at night while he slept. Beyond the blue night lights, there was no effort to supervise and protect us while we slept at night.

Race
I am white, and Linton Hall was the first place I met kids who were black. As a child my world revolved around school and neighborhood, and there was only one black child (in another grade) in my school before I went to LH. Not surprisingly, there were no black teachers, either. The janitor was black, which says much about opportunities and hiring decisions during that era.

As an aside, I use the terms "black" and "white" instead of "Caucasian" and "African American" simply because those were the descriptive terms used at that time.

I didn't treat black differently as a groupthan I did whites. Some I liked, some I didn't, but it was about who they were as individuals and not about race. A good thing about the boys at Linton Hall is that in general (there are always exceptions) most acted the same way. I had freinds but not really a best friend, but of those that did have a best friend, sometimes friendships were between two of different races.

On the other hand, there were racial taunts used as fighting words, not the "n-word" but others, both against whites and against blacks, and there were slurs about Mexicans as well, but interestingly they seemed to be used more against a specific individuals than against the group. It would not be unusual for one cadet to call another a racial slur as a way to provoke a fight, while still remaining friends with others of both races, and doing this in front of others. Unfortunately, there was little that the adults did to teach us otherwise. Someone doing this would get a verbal reprimand such as "it's not nice to say that" but I cannont recall a single instance of someone getting the same punishment of having to chew a bar of soap, as would happen when someone got caught saying offensive, but far LESS hurtful four-letter words.

I cannot generalize about adults, but I remember when a nun, not Sister Mary David but someone else who taught classes, reminiscing about having been principal of another school. She said something along the lines of "I was principal of the white school, and we had the black school right across the street." (This is a paraphrase, I don't recall the exact words.) We were shocked by this, and she answered something along the lines of, "well that's how things were done by then." I was and still am shocked that a purportedly religious order would have followed along with an offensive, immoral practice instead of having the moral fortitude to decide to integrate its own schools. I am not mentioning her name because I do not believe that the decision was hers alone to make, that there was a board of directors, or head of the Benedictine order, or perhaps the bishop or archbishop with jurisdiction over Richmond.

What Linton Hall could have been
The saddest thing is that Linton Hall didn't have to be that way. It had the potential to be much more. The building, the rural location the quality of the teachers, the resources were all there. As an administrator, Sister Mary David ran the school well, it was only in terms ofhow we were treated that the school fell far short. The school charged enough for room and board that we could have been fed more, and better.

Let's just look at the lack of fresh fruit as an example. One time (a year or two after I left Linton Hall) I bought one banana at the supermarket for six cents. I still remember this because it was all I bought and such a small, unusual purchase sticks in my mind. At the same time a small candy bar cost a nickel, a large one ten cents. These are all retail prices, not wholesale. Instead of the daily candy bars, we could have been given a banana instead. Distributing bananas is no more labor intensive than distributing candy bars, nor are bananas messy to eat. Apples cost a little more (depending on how large the apple is) but even so, we could have had half an apple. Cutting a hundred apples in half shouldn't involve more labor than putting two hundred dollops of apple sauce on two hundred trays. Plus, the school is in Virginia, where a lot of apples are grown. I doubt that two hundred apple halves, or even two hundred whole, large, crisp, freshly pciked apples would have cost more than two hundred candy bars.

Traffic was much lighter in the Washington area than it is today. LHMS had a school bus that was used to take us to parades, take the teams to away games, and so on. Gas, or diesel fuel, was affordable back then. Museums in DC were and still are, free. Could we not have been taken, maybe one or two grades at a time, for a field trip to DC? Wouldn't that have been a better activity than being cooped up in the gym on a rainy day, or watching a movie in the gym in the evening? As an aside, I should mention that we were charged for movies and that the money was deducted from our sundries account. They could have made a similar deduction for gas and wear and tear on the bus just like they did for movies.

Could they have been more careful with our parents' money? Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, you know. Did we really need a pair of "white ducks pants" altered by a tailor of course, to wear just for a couple of hours on one day a year (Military Day)?

Why else would they need to censor mail other than to hide everything that went on? If a child at camp makes up stuff and writes home about it, whoever is in charge of the camp will get a call from the parents and there will be an opportunity for those in charge to discuss the matter and set the record straight. The need for censorship existed only to hide the truth.
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Copyright 2011 by Linton Hall Cadet. Please respect copyright by linking to this post instead of copying and pasting. This blog is not affiliated with Linton Hall Military School and all opinions are those of the author. Comments are always welcome; please do not use your name or names of others.

Did we learn leadership at Linton Hall Military School?

Linton Hall, and other military schools, often tout their ability to turn boys into "leaders." And those who do achieve officer status certainly look and play the part. I know I did. But is that really leadership?

Leadership is generally defined as "the ability to influence others to achieve a common objective." I would thus define good leadership as involving both a good objective, and good, ethical means of achieving influence. An example of good leadership would occur when you take visiting relatives to see your local city, and you take into account the needs and desires of the group as a whole (which might not be exactly the needs and desires of each individual.) You might find an activity that everyone enjoys, schedule rest and bathroom breaks, pay attention to others' reactions (things such as boredom, discomfort, tiredness, which they might not actually tell you about in order to be polite) and so on. And a good leader would put the needs and wants of the entire group (of which he is part) over his own needs and wants. He might pay for most or all the expenses, or if the others insist on paying but he knows they cannot afford it, choose inexpensive or free activities.

Another example would be that of a teacher whose goal is for everyone in the classroom to learn as much as possible, to learn the more important and useful skills and facts, to be motivated to learn. Such a teacher would be more than just responsive to questions and feedback; he would take into account which teaching methods and textbooks worked best, and use them so that there would be little need for questions and complaints.

I am convinced that at Linton Hall Military School, with its large number of rules covering the most minute details and every conceivable activity of the day, and scheduling every moment of the day, was an environment where the officers were simply enforcing rules that everyone had to follow, and not exercising true leadership. From personal experience (I was an officer during the entire school year while in eighth grade) I know that good leadership, true leadership, was not expected from me, nor was it really allowed. I was simply an enforcer. I used fear, intimidation, threats of punishment and actual punishment to achieve the objectives of the adults (ultimately the principal, Sister Mary David O.S.B.) who was the final authority on all matters. I was doing exactly what other officers were doing to others, what officers had done to me from the time I had entered Linton Hall, and what other officers would do for the rest of Linton Hall's existence as a military school (that is, until it became Linton Hall School.)

It was only on rare occasions that I and other officers were able to decide to do what was actually best for the cadets under our command, instead of what we were expected to do automatically and without question. This often happened during field hikes, but rarely during daily activities.

One such occasion, was when it was bitterly cold and windy during drill, as it often was in Bristow, Virginia. The officers were permitted to take us on bathroom breaks in the warm (but dirty and smelly) bathroom downstairs under the Commandant's office. I was still a private, and had no say in the matter, but the breaks on that day were unusually long, in order to give us a break from the bitter cold. I remember the platoon leaders and company commanders of different companies negotiating amongst themselves as to which platoons had had a long enough break and would have to return out into the cold, so that if Mary David or the Commandant were to look out from their warm offices, they would see some of us marching. It goes without saying that they were risking their rank by bending (or breaking) the rules to such an extent.

Another time was when the entire battallion was being punished because the culprit, or culprits for some infraction had not been identified. I don't remember what the infraction was, but there were so many rules that it well have been something that in most schools would have not been considered wrong at all. School administrators had no qualms about punishing the innocent; perhaps the school motto should have been "Better for many innocent boys to be punished, than for one guilty boy to go free."

The punishment was to run in circles, many circles, around the blacktop. Many of us were exhausted but had to keep on running under threat of even worse punishment -- beyond what was being meted out unjustly in the first place. There was a wall, called a windbreak, and the officers would allow a few cadets to rest and catch their breath while the rest of us kept running the circle around the blacktop. Every time the runners completed a circle and arrived at the windbreak, those who had been resting would rejoin the runners, and it would be time for some of the others to take their turn and rest. I was not an officer yet, and still marvel at how the officers were able to agree on doing this, and coordinate the change of who was running with who was resting, during the few seconds that we were behind the windbreak and were out of view of the Commandant. Keep in mind, we weren't just a disorganized group, but while running had to keep the same formation of platoons and squads as when we marched.

The only explanation I can think of is that all officers had been at Linton Hall Military School at least the previous year (this happened during my first year at Linton Hall) and that this had happened before, perhaps a long tradition of officers showing kindness, and of cadets remembering this kindness and passing it on when they became officers.

What amazes me even more is that, in an environment in which such a large proportion of the student body was ready to rat out on others and take pleasure in their being punished, not one cadet revealed what had happened, even though the whole battallion of 200 or more cadets knew what was going on. It is only now, over forty years later, that I am discussing this.

On the other hand, there were too many times when officers insisted on strict adherence to the rules, instead of doing what was best for either the individuals or the group. The first time I went camping at Linton Hall, we were getting our gear ready, and there was another cadet in my company who was having trouble rolling up his sleeping bag and tying it to his backpack with the two canvas straps. He was new (as I was) and had never done this before, and was getting extremely frustrated, so I decided to help him. It was easier for two people to do this, one holding the tightly rolled sleeping bag, the other tightening the straps. This was a minor act of kindness, like holding a door open, in the outside world; something most outsiders would do automatically, without even thinking about such a minor gesture. But no, my company commander saw me doing this and wouldn't allow me to help, or even to show him how to do it, so he would learn how. (I was still new, and actually asked the company commander to allow me to at least show the other cadet how it was done. A bit naive of a lowly private, or recruit, to even try getting a captain to allow me to do the right thing.)

I am embarrassed to admit (the fact that I write under a pen name comes in handy here) that by the time I had become an officer I too had lost much of my kindness. One time a boy in my company had dressed quickly and messily for the weekend parade. I yelled at him and called him a mess, embarrassing him in front of his peers, while attempting to enhance my image as a tough guy. How much better it would have been if I had said to him, "This is your first year here, and I know that it's hard to get your uniform on right . I had trouble with it too when I first came here. Here, let me show you how to put the elastic at the bottom of your pants so it's even. Make sure your tie is on straight too." I know this now, and probably knew it before I entered Linton Hall, but managed to un-learn it while I was there. I could have gotten far better results, and would have had the kid's respect and admiration, instead of his fear and contempt for being a total (insert here all the words that would have caused me to be forced to chew a bar of soap.)

To be fair to myself, there were many occasions when I could tell that someone had broken a rule unintentionally and I did not punish him, and one time when the prefect of our dorm told me to punish someone who I knew definitely did not deserve it, I very quietly ignored her instructions ond let him off. There were a couple of times too when I went to bat for someone who had been unjustly or excessively punished by either an equally-ranking officer, or a higher-ranking one, and I spoke with the other officer in private to have the punishment mitigated. I tried, but unfortunately don't remember ever succeeding.

And, finally, there was one time when Sister Mary David punished me for something I didn't do. Not that she would bother with such small details as guilt or innocence. I don't know exactly what went on, but I strongly suspect that she discussed this event with the Commandant, Max Du Charme, and that he went to bat for me. He couldn't overrule her since she was the final authority, but I think it extremely likely that he tried to intercede in my favor.

Okay, back to leadership. I would not argue that fear, intimidation and the use of physical punishment resulted in obedience at Linton Hall -- just as they do during an armed robbery. But did we learn anything about leadership? Anything that could be applied in the world outside the walls of Linton Hall Military School? I can only think of a few settings where such tactics would work, places like the military and prisons, whose inhabitants have little choice about whether or not they follow orders.

Outside of such settings, influence, not fear and intimidation, are the tools used to lead. This is the case with college students working on a group project, or even a group of friends coming to a consensus on how to spend the evening. Determining what the common goal is (or should be,) and organizing the means to do so are the way to lead and get results. I am saddened to say that these are not lessons I learned at Linton Hall. When I found myself in high school, working on a group project, I lacked the skills that I needed to work in a group in which there were no officers, no orders, and no rank. But I did notice that many of the kids who were involved in drugs, vandalism, shoplifting and other undesirable behaviors often came from the most autocratic homes, often a father who was or had been in the military or police and had been so strict that his children ended up rebelling in very self destructive ways.

Responses are always welcome. Please do not use names.

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Copyright 2011 "Linton Hall Cadet" Please respect copyright by linking to this post instead of just copying and pasting. Thanks!
This blog is NOT affiliated with Linton Hall Military School. The opinions contained are those of the author.

What other Linton Hall Military School Alumni wrote

Other former Linton Hall cadets have written about their experiences:

Augustus Cho has written two books about Linton Hall Military School. The most recent covers his first year at Linton Hall during the 1968-1969 academic year.

Another blog about Linton Hall Military School has been started by an alumnus who calls himself "LHMS Cadet." (Despite the similarity in our pen names, we are two different people.) This alumnus has previously posted lengthy, detailed, and extremely perceptive comments on my blog.
In his own, excellent blog he describes "Growing up at Linton Hall Military School: the good, the bad, and the ugly" just as I remember it, and has also written extremely interesting details about two significant events at Linton Hall that I was not aware of until reading about them on his blog.