Lipsky takes you inside the odd world of plebes and firsties. Punishment is meted out for an imperfect shave. Possessing porn’s OK, and dorms have “spank walls”–dividers for privacy in shared rooms–but cadets who “share the same piece of furniture” are expelled. The author drank with cadets, hung out in their rooms till 2 a.m., road-marched with them–and fought the urge to go native. He wore his hair shorter and grew annoyed that people in his hometown of Manhattan spoke out of turn. “A lot of liberals discount the military,” he says. “But the ‘better America’ they’re talking about is West Point.”
