Beauties and the Beast

Every summer West Point runs its fresh-faced plebes through a grueling eight-week training program known as Beast Barracks. This year there were some beauties in the Beast: 119 women, the first in the academy's 174-year history, joined 1,480 male plebes in the Long Gray Line.

Last Wednesday, the first day of the Beast, the rookie cadettes marched, did pull-ups (highest female score: seven; highest male score: 23) and had their tresses shortened to collar length by barbers trained at a local beauty salon. On a printed form not yet completely desexed, all plebes were asked: "What was the highest rank you attained in the Boy Scouts?"

Women have been integrated into the barracks, but the Army has built separate lavatories, and both sexes will be required to wear bathrobes in the hallways. Like Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, which have also just admitted their first women, West Point is determined to treat men and women identically. But there are a few exceptions at the Point: women will learn karate instead of boxing and wrestling, and they will carry M-16 rifles, which are 2 Ibs. lighter than the men's M-14s.

Says Cadet Gay Gray of Dallas: "We know the eyes of America are upon us." The academy's superintendent, Lieut. General Sidney B. Berry, knows it too. Reminded that he once threatened to resign if women were accepted at the Point, the general said last week: "It was rather adolescent on my part. But I got over it and decided to do what a good soldier does--get on with the job."

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