Acceptance Day is the day when the West Point New Cadets are officially accepted into the Corps of Cadets, thus becoming Plebes (the West Point terms for first-year student). This picture shows the huge crowd of parents, family, girlfriends, boyfriends, and well-wishers that turned up for the event this fall. It also shows the Plain, the huge grassy lawn on which all the official parades take place. You can see the path down which the companies walk along the edge of the lawn - the grass is trampled down.
After much of the boringness that comes with any military parade it was finally time for the companies to march for review and then leave the Plain. I got this swell picture of Ziga's company (B3 "Bandits") just after they passed the review stand. This was Ziga's first parade as a Firstie (the West Point term for "senior," short for "First Class") and amazingly enough, not only could I pick him out in the sea of soldiers, but he's actually quite visible in this picture, due to the fact that he's a Platoon leader and thus in the front line. He's the one that's on the end on the right. Here, I'll pick him out for you:
We met up after the parade and had our picture taken. Amazingly, despite overcast skies, I managed to get sunburned. I was happy to be there, even if the parade was long and less than riveting. It's nice to be there for him.
Ziga and some of his buddies from his company got together before the parade and took some very wonderful photos replicating the "old corps" pictures that cadets used to take back in the days when we had some style. This is a traditional "sabers in the center" pose.
For the full effect of this one I just had to put it in black and white. This is remarkably like a traditional "casual pose" old corps picture. The mock seriousness just cracks me up.
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