The Streak

Awarded 2nd place for Round 37 of the "Make Me Laugh HOLIDAY Shorts Contest" (3 Nov 08)

The phenomenon was called "The Streak."

Ray Stevens immortalized it in the mid-70s in a song of the same name; college kids were doing it all across the country during the same period. There are probably as many stories as are participants in this short-lived, but great American pastime.

My university in a northern New England state was no exception. In fact, a very large-scale, mass streak was organized for one particular evening in February. More than three hundred students, both men and women wearing nothing but sneakers and an occasional scarf, streamed out of the dorms at one end of the Mall at 5:00 p.m. running the almost quarter mile to the University Library at the opposite end, then down the other side back to the dorms.

On a warm spring day, the grassy Mall would be covered with students sitting on blankets studying or enjoying the sun. On this evening, however, they braved frigid temperatures and large patches of very slick ice. One hapless soul who slipped on the ice found his bum plastered on the front page of the student newspaper the following day. At least his face was hidden. The moon rose early that evening.

But that was just the warmup to an event that occurred about six weeks later.

I was a member of the university's Army ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) Detachment. My class was the first to accept women. Two years later amid the height of the streaking phase, our detachment had more than twenty women cadets.

Our Spring FTX (field training exercise) was held at Ft. Devens (Massachusetts). Part of the training required an overnight stay in old WWII barracks. Peculiar to these buildings was the open-bay interior with bunk-beds lining each side of the floor. There were no interior walls supporting the roof, just two large posts in the center of the room about ten feet from the doors at both ends. The ladies occupied one building, the men another.

The guys, inspired by recent events, planned a streaking maneuver through the lady's barracks. One military maxim not found in official literature is that "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy." The battle plan (a well-organized, flawlessly executed streak) and the 'enemy' (the ladies and their barracks) proved that very point.

Twelve men wearing only their combat boots would depart their barracks at a high rate of double-time toward the lady's barracks next door. The lead man would hold the door open allowing the remaining men to streak through in single file whooping and hollering and terrorizing the ladies. The first man to the back door would again hold it open until all men exited the building. They would rally back at their building for a post-streak critique.

The plan went flawlessly ... until the second man in line, who had removed his glasses lest he be recognized, failed to negotiate around the post in the center of the room. Going full tilt, he ran headlong into the post, and knocked himself out cold. His buddies never broke stride--they streaked past him, leaving him naked and spread-eagled on the floor.

The final critique went something like this: The plan, while very well thought-out and organized, was poorly executed. Both flanks of the maneuver were fully exposed, the unit failed to use cover and concealment to their advantage, and they left a man behind in an exposed position.

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