One of the "tacs.," as the tactical officers are called, was making an unscheduled tour of inspection. For an upper class man to be caught hazing, or for a plebe to be caught submitting, was equally dangerous to either yearling or plebe! It might mean dismissal.
CHAPTER VII
A SUDDEN GRIND AT MATH.
Had Dick's been the first door opened six cadets would have been instantly in serious trouble.
Fortunately the door across the corridor was the first to be opened, and the six on this side of the hallway heard another cadet's voice call quietly:
"Attention!"
It was, therefore, a tactical officer making an inspection.
At the United States Military Academy the superintendent, who has the local rank of colonel, is at the head of this government institution in all its departments.
Discipline, however, and training in tactics, comes within the especial province of another officer, known as the commandant of cadets, who ranks locally as a lieutenant-colonel, and who gets in closer touch with the cadet corps.
Under the commandant of cadets are several other Army officers, captains and lieutenants, who take upon themselves the numerous duties of which the commandant has oversight. These subordinate officers in the tactical department are known as tactical officers. The cadets call them "tac.s."