Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor O’Dark-Thirty

The traffic is light along Loop 1 in Austin at this time of night. Most of the city has finished watching Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien and televisions have been turned off. People are sleeping.

A policeman manning a speed trap would probably conclude that the evening’s excitement has passed, he can pack it in. But were he to do so, he would miss the engine sound growling ever louder from the stretch down south. He wouldn’t be there to have his eyes widen at a streak of white as it flies past, or to gun his own engine in pursuit of another, obviously on a mission.

Ten minutes later the white apparition would come to a stop in a parking lot in Pflugerville, north of Austin. Its driver, a determined-faced woman brandishing a ring of keys, would stride with purpose to the door of the office that waits for her in silence.

The woman is WP-ORG’s Megan Klein, her mission is to fix an ailing Linux server. The time of day is not a factor, WP-ORG systems are down and Megan is well aware that downtime is not an option. So, she performs her duty and, a short time later, her mission is complete.

Before becoming one of WP-ORG’s two systems engineers, Megan (pronounced ME’gan) worked with Smithfield in North Carolina for several years on their National Pig Development (NPD) swine farms, developing breeding stock. She holds an animal science degree from Cal Poly Pomona.

Life’s fortunes led Megan to Austin in the late ’90s where she nurtured an interest in computer technology and acquired the “White Ghost” for transportation. Several years and 182,000 miles later, she and her chariot still charge headlong into the fray together. Along the way she attracted a husband, Ken, who manages to smooth some of the bumps in the road.

A key player on the WP-ORG team, Megan is instrumental in achieving as close to a 24×7 up-time record for the organization as possible. Now, how many other 501(c)3 organizations can boast this level of availability?

Megan and The Ghost

~ Dempsey

Now That Was Entertainment!

Fellow graduate and frequent West Point Forum contributor Darren runs his own BLOG (I’ve omitted Darren’s last name because he does so on his BLOG and he doesn’t know I’m writing about him - yet). In a recent post he does a succinct job of explaining the expression, “The Corps Has…”. It seems The Dave Matthews Band will be performing at West Point and Darren laments, “Dave Matthews never played when I was there.”

My time as a cadet preceded Darren’s by more than a decade and when I was there we had a number of notable acts breeze through. We had marquee headliners such as Bill Cosby and Bob Hope. My roommate, Eugene Shaw, escorted Stevie Wonder during his gig at Michie Stadium and Jesse McCorvey provided the same service for Mary Travers of the group Peter, Paul and Mary. Due to my ongoing battles with the Tactical Department I spent an inordinate amount of time on confinement and couldn’t see most of these acts but I did manage to catch Gordon Lightfoot in South Auditorium. The group America performed with one of the band members wearing a cadet’s full dress coat.

We were told that these acts were arranged by the Dialectic Society. I didn’t (and still don’t) know what this society was but it obviously had a lot of pull and was well connected. I had a vision of an underground group of individuals whose identities were kept secret. As a cover for classified activities they provided entertainment for the corps. The stature of the acts they were able to book spoke to the power and reach of the society. I made it a point to never cross anyone who I thought might be a member and I never asked questions.

We had a tough Beast Barracks and Plebe Year was hell, even for those of us in Fourth Regiment (known at the time as “Frat Four” for its relatively relaxed atmosphere [a myth]), but for what little leisure time we had we did manage to attract some top shelf entertainment. So, depending on your perspective, I guess you could say The Corps Has. Or Was. Or Would.

We never could get Clint Eastwood to speak at graduation, though.

 ~ Dempsey