The Michigan Triangle
The Sports Quarter
You don’t cheat.
A friend told us back in the day when conscription ruled and the Vietnam War severely divided the nation, his first week in bootcamp the cadre strolled quietly through the standing-at-attention group staring them up and down.
Then suddenly he stopped and shouted at them, catching everyone off guard: “You can do anything you want here.”
The friend said he thought he could feel a sigh of relief come over all the young bloods. At that point the cadre repeated himself, shouting louder: “You can do anything you want here. Just don’t get fucking caught!”
Michigan cheated and Michigan got caught. Source
In our own case early in boot camp a different cadre, a combat veteran, came quietly strolling through the ranks when he stopped with the most pathetic look on his face, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “God Damn,” he mournfully bellowed out. “Scraping the fucking bottom of the barrel this time.”
And walked off leaving everyone standing there at attention.
Most of us then probably didn’t understand that his job and those of a few others was to whip this pitiful glob human protoplasm into fucking warriors.
You don’t cheat.