VMI Cadet. February 29, 1980

              VOLUME LXX Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, February 29,1980 NUMBER19
Class Of 1983 Breaks Out
Above: Fred AAock and John Chandler
work on C-Company RATS during 3rd
Class sweat party.
photo by E.T.Walsh
Below: Under careful supervision the rats
continued the tradition of breaking out on
the stoops.
photo by KRAB
by Richard Smith
The Rat Class of 79-80 was
resurrected and broke out at
6:56, 27 February. After six
months the members of the
Class of 1983 have now begun a
new stage of their cadetships.
The resurrection began Fri-day,
22 February with a morn-ing
run and an RQ sweat party.
The week continued with both
the second and third classes
having a DRC and a RQ sweat
party, setting the stage for the
final day of this year's ratline.
The actual breakout was
reordered this year in the in-terest
of a greater safety
margin and a more symbolic
representation of class unity. In
the past the Rats have charged
en masse to the designated
stairwells.
This year the Rats charged in
three waves. Groups of forty hit
the three stairwells as they
began their push to the fourth
stoop. The Rats not at the stairs
were given a sweat party in the
old courtyard. Through suc-cessive
periods of 15, 10, and 7
minute periods the entire Rat
Class was finally assembled
around the third stoop.
At that time Walt Wood, the
President of the First Class, for-mally
pronounced the Rat Line
over and the Class of '83 was
born. After an old yell for their
new class the breakout was
over.
The event lasted approx-imately
an hour, and was view-ed
as a success by all who par-ticipated.
"Breakout '80 was a success
and I'm pleased with its out-come.
A few adjustments were
made in it, but to anyone who
witnessed or participated I'm
sure you'll agree the effect was
just as it should have been.
Shockingly remarkable," was
Wood's summation of the event.
John Rudolph, the Regimen-tal
Commander, offered these
words of advice to the new
class. "The end of the Ratline
not only marks the finish of be-ing
a Rat but also the start of
being a cadet. All former Rats
are now cadets and are ex-pected
to act as such, using
what they were taught in the
Ratline and striving to obtain
the goals which they have set
for themselves."
Congratulations to the newly
arrived Class of 1983. A very
fine job during the preceding
semester culminating in a spec-tacular
"Breakout". You can
now stand tall as a unified class
at VMI.
On Thursday March 6 a team
from the United States Marine
Corps Development and Educa-tion
Command at Quantico, Va.
will present a lecture on Am-phibious
Warfare. This 11
member team was specially
formed for this purpose and will
concentrate on Marine Corps
c a p a b i l i t i e s and recent
research and development.
They will use films and slides
and follow up with a question
and answer period. The team
recently completed a fifty day
trip to the Far East, visiting
such areas as Japan, The
Phillipines and Hawaii. Next
fall they're setting out for
Europe and a tour through our
NATO allies.
The group is lead by Col. Ed-ward
Clarkson who has a son
here at VMI. The lecture is at
1930 on the 400 level of Lejeune
Hall.
\ews
Briefs
News from the Placement Of-fice
this week include inter-views
by Milliken Company on
19 March and Burlington In-dustries
on 20 March. Burl-ington
will conduct two inter-views,
one in Lejeune Hall and
the other in NEB.
Of great interest to upcoming
graduates is the College Place-ment
Council's survey on job of-ferings
among holders of
bachelor's degrees. Leading the
pack are the ever popular
engineering fields. To be more
specific, engineering fields
cover 60% of all job offerings.
Business related majors close
in with 30%, while the sciences
and humanities settled with
10%.
Salaries for these jobs follow-ed
the same trends — Civil and
Electrical engineers (BS
degree) made on the average
$1,500 per month, while those
with degrees in the humanities
only made $1,000 per month.
This Sunday's sermon will
keep with the Lenten theme of
"Behold the Man." Dr. William
K. Amiott of Lexington will con-duct
the sermon.
Mrs. Alice Ferguson, wife of
Rev. John Ferguson, who was
guest organist last Sunday has
agreed to stay on for the re-mainder
of the semester. We
are proud to have such a
talented organist to compliment
the new organ.
Next Sunday, March 9, Col.
Caudill will portray Judas in
costume much the same way he
did Joseph during the
Christmas service. Also during
that service the Hollins
Religious Council will be up for
the service and lunch. The
Sacred Dance Group will per-form
again.
* *
Want to get the word across?
If your club or group has an an-nouncement
or news of interest
- the t adet is the place to put it.
The VMI Cadet reaches a very
large number of readers. Not
only your fellow cadets, but a
great deal of faculty, alumni,
and others in the VMI family.
Anyone with a message of an-nouncement
of news should see
John Caplice in room 154.