The Plebe Hack
Jul 09, 2024
In a letter or during a phone call, you might hear that your plebes aren’t feeling too great. Their throats hurt, they’re coughing, they have a slight fever, or maybe they just feel terrible (and it’s not just because their detailers keep yelling at them).
If so, it is likely that they have fallen victim to the ‘plebe hack’.
The plebe hack is the name given to the bug that tends to hit a large number of plebes during each summer. As a result of close living quarters, exhaustion, and less-than-impressive hygiene, the plebe hack runs rampant through Bancroft every year without fail.
However, the issue of hygiene is not for a lack of effort put forth by the administration and the detailers.
With a steady rise in the number of medical ‘chits’ (what you would think of as a doctor’s note) for respiratory tract infections (plebe hack), the 2016 2nd Set Plebe Summer Regimental Staff decided to take make a stand.
Drastic times call for drastic measures, and therefore with over 200 plebes sick at the same time, the Regimental Staff declared a war on germs.
If you don’t take a picture with cleaning supplies in hand, did you really declare a war on germs? I think not…
As a result of this declaration, we stationed disinfecting wipes in every company area. Additionally, we required that every 15 minutes, the plebe on watch would walk around and wipe down every single door handle, sink, and quite frankly every object that the plebes would touch.
On top of the individual purell bottles every plebe has attached to his or her canteen, we bought large bottles and placed them all around Bancroft Hall in common areas to allow plebes to refill or just get an extra sanitization. We did everything in our power to attempt to minimize the spread of the hack.
However, here’s the problem: plebes are disgusting.
Despite how many times you tell them to wash their hands, to use Purell, to not sneeze in their hands and then touch things, they don’t. They just simply do not listen.
Encourage your plebe to go to the Brigade Medical Unit (BMU) to get medication if they need it.
But at the end of the day, it honestly is just a common chest cold. So if your plebe tells you they aren’t feeling great, try not to worry too much; they’re probably just another victim of the standard plebe hack. If there is anything more serious going on with your plebe, the detailers will be aware of it.
So if you heard a little cough on that phone call - just know the Plebe Hack is living on in Naval Academy tradition!
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Founder of Academy Insider and Podcast Host Grant Vermeer
Grant Vermeer is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four-year member of the varsity basketball team.
He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
