Academy Wrap June 2002
By Jon Hall

Like all of you hear about ADFA, every day I tend to notice that this place of government-funded greatness has many a flaw. This column is there for a tribute to the fantastic faux pas that exists within the Academy grounds.

It questions how one institution that has millions of dollars poured into it, and promotes common-sense thinking, is so demented in its physical appearance. In my article I would like to discuss one of the banes of my existence – The non-existent path outside Military Communications Program building.

Picture this. You have just handed in an MCP assignment, which you wrote in the last half hour, and you now want to quickly leave this eerily quiet section of the Physics building. You head straight down the hall to what you see are the two doors to freedom from the ever so friendly tutors of the military communications program. Out you step, and in front of you are two things. On your left- a hugely obvious sign saying “Military Communications Program” with a nice big arrow pointing in towards the two doors behind you. On your right, a patch of grass. That’s right, a nice patch of grass. But surely not! As cadets of this world renowned Academy we know better than to place our precious hand-polished shoes on grass, and instead only walk on the concrete paths. (Thank god for the almighty civil engineer)

Now whilst not fully robotic yet, our simple Cadet minds are at this point confused. In my time I’ve seen many a Navy Midshipman and Army/Air Force Cadet stand atop the steps and not move for a good 30 seconds, giving time for their brains process their trip and how it came to this junction of madness.

As a result, one of two decisions of them made- to take the shortest route, involving going forward in the defying act and walking across the grass, or instead to turn around and, in an act of defeat, walk all the way through the physics building and along the safety of the concrete paths.

The question to you all is why ADFA, a place of architectural award, would do this to us hopeless cadets? Don’t we make enough decisions as it is? The answer is clear and simple, “We ran out of money and just left it. We figured it would do the job”

Well as a cadet of this institution I say C’MON! I mean sure, they have tried to build a path, which is indicated by the uneven chunks of crap sticking out of the grass where they thought path should go (yes I did choose the defiant route on a given day). But is that really good enough?

This is a place that spends thousands of dollars making sure the Parade Ground hedges grow straight, but cannot provide a simple concrete path for us cadets to walk on after leaving a class that is paramount to our future as officers.

In summation, all I wish to say is this. The next time you're in the area of Lecture Theatres South (since there are only 2 blocks of lecture theatres- 10 rooms in total), have a look at this monstrosity of an engineering effort. Take your time though, as I’m sure not a single thing will be done about it in the near future. Why would the Academy want to provide something simple and useful like a path, when they can instead spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on physical structures that are about as useful as an Arts degree?