THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010025
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 58 lines
Virginia without the Virginia Military Institute is unthinkable. If VMI had done no more than produce George Marshall, citizen soldier, it would lock our affections.
The four-story barracks, framing the parade ground, makes the little plateau a stage with mountains as a backdrop. In the rising sun, the fortlike stucco walls are white. As the day wanes, hues on the battlements shift from light beige after noon to a shade close to English mustard near sunset on its towers.
To parade, more than 1,000 cadets form, unseen, in the anthill-busy courtyard. At a bugle call, the regimental band appears under Jackson Arch in the clifflike face.
One second the building is still, the arch, tall enough to swallow an 18-wheel trailer, is empty. As bugle notes fade, the arch fills with marching men, sun glinting on silver swords and brass instruments as if a box of toy soldiers has been emptied under the door of a play fort. Six companies emerge from Jackson Arch, three more from Marshall Arch. They march as one. Even creases in the uniforms occur in the same places at the same time in the gray-clad ranks as if they are a sculptured frieze of moving men.
On Founders Day, the band plays the Doxology with which churches close services, beginning, ``Praise God from whom all blessings flow. . . '' At VMI they sing it:
Red, white, and yellow float on high/ The Institute shall never die/ So now Keydets, with one voice cry,/ God bless our team and VMI.
As the band plays ``The Spirit of VMI,'' the Corps disappears under the arches. The barracks face is a shut toy chest. Such a scene moved cadet Marshall to become a soldier.
Now under Supreme Court orders, VMI, summoning creative energies, would do well to make room for women and make it an even finer place.
No fret! Build quarters for 'em. Bob their hair to fit under a hat. Set up rigorous exercises. Drill the lot with men. Let 'em compete in classes. What is so fearsome about the prospect of VMI rat-dom, anyway - child's play to women who face the pangs, one day, of birthing men.
When the University of Virginia desegregated, old and young wahoos bewailed the loss of a ``Way of Life,'' consisting notably of getting drunk and rolling around to women's colleges on weekends.
The faculty found that women in classes raised the intellectual level nearer that envisioned by Jefferson in founding THE University.
Women are enlivening every phase of society, including management. In clinging to monastic seclusion, VMI would drop out of step with a changing universe.
Noticing VMI men around him before the battle of Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson said: ``The Institute will be heard from today.''
To continue to be heard from today, let its cadets join the swelling national chorus of men and women. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
What is so fearsome about the prospect of VMI rat-dom, anyway -
child's play to women who face the pangs, one day, of birthing men. by CNB