Captain H at West Point called again at 4:28pm.
When I saw the 845 West Point area-code come up on my cell phone again, I expected the worst: “Daehee Park, you are being charged by the US Department of Defense for intellectual property infringement. So immediately dismantle your website, say goodbye to your wife and kids, and our West Point legal team will see you in court on July 20th.”
Instead, Captain H caught me by surprise and said, “After talking to some other people here, we actually think your website is a good idea… You can continue with what you are doing.”
Captain H had nothing more to say, but I made sure to explain that although I am not a West Point cadet, I know what I’m talking about because I did apply and get into West Point, as stated on Get Into Academy’s About Us page.
This is what we would call bi-polar disorder if it were an individual who behaved in this way. But since West Point is an organization, it is just really shitty public relations. In the morning, West Point interrogated me over the phone, threatened me with a lawsuit, and told me that they would trace my cell phone number to dig up my personal records. Then in afternoon, West Point calls me and compliments me on the website. Now that deserves a WTF.
It would have been better if they had sent an email to me first with a calm explanation of what was going on. Instead, they chose to find my phone number and sick a pitbull on me. But this should not be surprising coming from the USMA from how they sued West Point graduates who were protesting against the Iraq War for using the trademarked term “West Point.”
At least now I can continue with my Get Into Academy project with the official approval of the US Military Academy. Should I expect similar phone calls from the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy in the near future? Or do they have more shrewd employees handling the public relations departments?
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I think you should look further into the matter. Call the USMA and ask if there is a person by that name and who is there superior officer or what department they are in. THe US Military does odd things at times and stupid things too but this sound fishy even to me
Counter-sue them for emotional stress. Using a similar logic to their own, one can assume that such accusations seem like a perfectly logical basis for a legal system.
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