The Lords of Discipline is a 1980 novel by Pat Conroy that was later adapted in a 1983 film of the same name. The story centers on Will McLean, who is in his fourth year at the fictional Carolina Military Institute in Charleston, South Carolina. Will's experiences are heavily based on Pat Conroy’s own experiences at The Citadel, a real military college in Charleston. The story is narrated in first person by Will, who attends the Institute between 1963 and 1967. Will recounts his years at the Institute, especially focusing on the school's brutal culture of hazing and abuse. After discovering a secret society that drives cadets deemed unworthy of graduating from the Institute to drop out by any means necessary, Will and his friends' graduations and lives are threatened. Background Although Conroy drew on his experiences as a cadet at The Citadel, and also references traditions and locations of both Norwich University and VMI, he has said that the story is fiction and not based on his life or that of any other graduate of a military academy. Citadel alumni were critical of the novel, considering it a thinly-veiled and unflattering account of the school, and Conroy was ostracized by his alma mater and effectively banned from campus for over 20 years after its publication. In 2000, The Citadel invited Conroy back to campus to receive an honorary doctorate, and again the next year as commencement speaker. Plot Will McLean, returning to the Carolina Military Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, an unknown number of years after his graduation, tells the story of his life at the Institute. In 1966, Will was an English major on a basketball scholarship, in his fourth and final year at the Institute. Will is not interested in a military career, and had only attended on account of his father, also an alumnus, to whom he made a deathbed promise years ago to attend and eventually wear the Institute's graduate ring. He is generally well-liked and his professors and peers recognize him for his integrity and fairness, although he is also sarcastic and independent. Will struggles to fit into the strict military environment, but finds solace in his three roommates, who have become his closest friends: Tradd St. Croix, the son of an upper-class Charlestonian family, and two brawny Italian-American boys from the North, Dante "Pig" Pignetti and Mark Santoro. They all look forward to