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calculations. I figured that the first drink I took cost me $5,000. The second one brought my per drink cost down to $2,500. Applying that logic some more, five drinks would be $1,000, fifty drinks $100, but if I had five
thousand
drinks over the next couple of years they would only cost me $1 a drink. I could afford that, allowance or not!
    My experience at Brown was just like it was at McCallie but in reverse order. Instead of going from bad to good, at Brown I went from good to bad, from being Mr. Straight Arrow to being a wild man. I fell in with the heaviest drinking crowd on campus and we’d stay up late and get into all sorts of trouble. Right before Christmas break and about a month into my new mode of behavior I went with a bunch of guys over to Wheaton, a women’s college in nearby Massachusetts. We’d been drinking and we wound up throwing chairs out the windows of one of the dormitories there. After someone called the police and we got caught, I was suspended from Brown for the rest of that school year.
    While stirring up trouble at Georgia Military Academy and McCallie, I’d been careful to stop short of suspension. Having crossed that line at Brown I dreaded my father’s reaction as I headed home for Christmas. He was indeed upset—every bit as angry as I thought he’d be—but his response was tempered by the fact that there was a new woman in his life. Her name was Jane Dillard, and she was the divorced daughter of a prominent Savannah family (her father was president of the Central Georgia Railroad). After a whirlwind courtship they were already engaged to be married. I was pleased to see my father happy with a new woman, but like a lot of kids with divorced parents, I think I’d always hoped Mom and Dad would get back together. My dad’s quick engagement was a surprise and while I would never share these feelings with my father, deep down I was really disappointed.
    After sorting through his own wedding and honeymoon plans, my father finally discussed with me what I would do for the next nine months before the following school year. His inclination was to have me work for him full-time but I didn’t like that idea. My peers were all in college and while it was one thing to be around home during the summer, it was quite another when school was in session. The draft was on, too, and as a suspended student there was an outside chance I’d receive notice. I decided to join the Coast Guard for six months as a reservist, figuring I could work hard, fulfill my military obligation, and head back to Brown in the fall. My father liked the idea of getting me back into a military environment and while he might have preferred that I stay home, he supported my decision to enlist in the Coast Guard.
    After signing up at the recruiting station I headed to Cape May, New Jersey, for thirteen weeks of training. Most people consider boot camp to be a pain, but I loved it. It was just like being back at McCallie. I embraced the discipline and structure and went right back to being Mr. Good Guy. I became company commander and led our team through Honor Company—a weekly competition I was determined to win. We were judged on military drill, cleanest barracks, and so on—all the disciplines I was used to from high school. Insisting that we were going to outwork every other company there, I put my leadership abilities to the test. As coxswain of our surfboat team, I decided we needed to hit the water for practice an hour before everybody else. This meant we’d have to get up at 5:30 A.M . every day instead of 6:30 like the others. There was some grumbling but the extra hours paid off and we started winning.
    I organized our competition like a business, delegating responsibilities to maximize our performance. For example, while the rest of us headed out early, I had one of our top guys hang back and supervise the cleaning of the barracks. He didn’t like being out on the water anyway so it worked out best for