100th Night, orders and hijinks

By Butch Wehry
Academy Spirit staff

Hundredth Night was Feb. 16, a time honored event when cadets soon graduating received their first orders and others pulled normally unthinkable shenanigans in the rooms of the firsties.

Cadet 1st Class Shawn Green penned the Class of 2007's Hundredth Night Rules of Engagement well.

"The vision is to foster the continuation of Academy heritage and tradition in honor of the firstie class who will receive base assignments," the cadet from Cadet Squadron 27 wrote.

Cadet senior officers of the day received special training beforehand. Senior cadets had to sign in before Taps on Monday.

You had to read between the lines. "Fourth class cadets are encouraged to wisely budget for the costs of their 100th Night room and not foolishly spend unreasonable and unnecessary amounts of money to decorate," wrote Cadet Green, 2007's chief of staff. "100th Night is a very time-honored piece of Academy tradition and allows a great outlook for fourth class creativity in honor of the first class. Cadets are to enjoy the weekend, take lots of pictures and to have fun."

He needn't have worried. What followed may not have lightened wallets, but it unleashed the ingenious creativity of junior ranking cadets. Beds were adorned with paper flowers in the rooms of senior cadets.

Wall-to-wall bales of straw appeared on floors and in beds.

A golf cart found its way into the middle of one room, miniature stadium seats in another, balloons in one with a cleverly devised dry swamp in another nearby.

Cadet 1st Class Sam Botwinski received orders to pilot training at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, in November.

"Receiving my first orders was an amazing experience, knowing where I'm going for pilot training and when I start, and that I graduate from here and start that chapter of my life in less than 100 days puts things in a different perspective," said Cadet Botwinski. "It makes graduation seem closer and makes it feel real. The light at the end of the tunnel is only getting brighter and I want to finish the race that I started here as a cadet strong." He remembers decorating a firsties room as a four degree and thinking that it must be nice to be so close to graduation and becoming a lieutenant.

"Coming back from an awesome 100th Night weekend to see my room well decorated by some War Eagle four degrees brought a big smile to my face," said the behavioral science major from Mosinee, Wis. "I can remember
decorating a firsties room as a four degree and thinking that it must be nice to be so close to graduation and becoming a lieutenant. They did a great job decorating. It was very classy and meaningful to my roommate and I. Life is good as a second-semester firstie."

He looked at his first assignment with his fiancee, which was not an easy task. "Because the event was a dining in, she had to wait in Arnold Hall while I was at the dinner," said Cadet Botwinski. "I had to fight off all of my friends that threatened to wrestle the folder that contained my first assignment away from me. This is not just my first assignment but it is really both of our assignment as we start our life together. We went out to dinner and we opened the folder together and started calling everyone and letting them know where we were headed. I wanted to find out with her where we would be living for the first year of our marriage."