VMI Cadet. October 14, 1983

              Beat The Cavaliers The V.M.I. Cadet One of America's Last Independent College Newspapers
VOLUME LXXIV Virginia Military institute, Lexington, Virginia, October 14,1983 NUMBER 7
Cadets Salute Cincinnatus
Representatives of Virginia
Military Institute were in
Fredericksburg this past Thurs-day
and Friday to join
members of the Society of the
Cincinnati in the State of
Virginia in observing the 200th
anniversary of the patriotic
organization's founding at
Fredericksburg on October 6-7,
1783.
VMI and the Society of the
Cincinnati share the common
bond of the citizen-soldier, the
principle upon which both the
Society and VMI were founded,
and in recognition of that
mutual tie and in appreciation
of support the Society has given
the Institute over the years,
several presentations were
made by VMI to the organiza-tion.
Principal among the gifts
was an original bronze statuette
of the Roman soldier Cincin-natus,
who has long been
recognized as the role model of
the citizen-soldier and from
whom the Society took its name.
In addition to the statuette,
VMI also presented to the
Society copies of three pieces of
sculpture created for the
Citizen-Soldier—Cincinnatus
Monument to be erected at VMI
later this year. The pieces in-clude
a bas relief depicting Cin-cinnatus
as he was called from
his farm to lead the Roman ar-my
and replicas of the two sides
of VMI's Society of the Qncin-nati
Medal, an award establish-ed
at the Institute by the
Virginia Society in 1913. All of
the sculptures will be placed in
the Society's national head-quarters,
Anderson House, in
Washington, D.C.
VMI representatives at the
bicentennial ceremonies in
Fredericksburg included
retired Institute history pro-fessor
Colonel George M.
Brooke, Jr., a member of the
Virginia Society of the Cincin-nati
and national chairman of
VMI's Citizen-Soldier—
Cincinnatus Monument project,
who made the presentations for
VMI, and Major General John
G. Castles, Adjutant General of
Virginia and a member of the
VMI Board of Visitors, who
presented the formal greetings
of the Institute's superinten-dent,
Gen, Sam S. Walker.
Four members of the VMI
Corps of Cadets were also
among the Institute's represen-tatives.
They are Cadet Donald
J. Kendall of Fredericksburg,
T. Spencer Williamson of Rich-mond,
John R. Urquart of
Staunton, and W. Hearne Moore
of Charlottesville, whose
fathers are members of the
Society.
The Society of the Qncinnati
was founded at the conclusion of
the American Revolutionary
War in 1783 by officers of the
(continued on page 6)
Recently, several members of the VMI College Republicans at-tended
the opening of Del. Vance Wilkins' Lexington Campaign
headquarters. Cadets pictured include: Andy Protogyrou, Bill
Powell, Mark Hooker (obscured), and Tucker Maloney. Not pic-tured:
Mark Briesmaster and Hank Selmon.
Ford Addresses Corps
This past Wednesday, 5 Oc-tober,
former president Gerald
R. Ford spoke to a large au-dience
at Cameron Hall. The
first speaker in the VMI H. B.
Johnson, Jr., '26 Distinguished
Lecture Series, the thirty-eighth
president defied his
reputation as a poor speaker, by
entertaining the audience with
not only a plethora of jokes at
the beginning but also a patrio-tic
call for the United States to
reaffirm its position as the
greatest power in the world.
The Prraident opened his
speech by thanking the Corps
for the review parade which
had been held ttot afternoon.
Conunenting on H. B. Johnson's
very complimentary introduc-tion,
Ford recalled a short
prayer "O Lord please forgive
me for exaggerating so much, 0
Lord please forgive me for en-joying
it so much." He went on
to comment that the introduc-tion
"sounded like an oral
obituary on my tombstone." He
reminded the audience that he
and his wife were in excellent
health. He went on to comment
on the number of people at the
reception "who asked me about
my golf game." He assured the
audience that it was much
improved—"I am hitting fewer
spectators." He was upset that
Bob Hope publically had been
making jokes about his golf
game. "Bob Hope jokes that I
(Ford) have made golf a com-bat,
contact sport." He closed
these jokes on his game witn
Hope's conclusion: "The presi-dent
played better the other
day, he had an eagle, a birdie,
an elk, a moose and a mason."
Ford then moved on to the
more serious part of his speech.
He related that sue weeks ago,
he had hosted the Second World
Forum in Vail, Colorado.
Former heads of state from
France, West (Germany, Great
Britain, and Australia as well
as top executives of many cor-porations
in the United States
were among those in atten-dance.
While they were en-couraged
by the world
economic progress this past
year, they were concerned as to
whe^er the progress would
continue, and the effect of "na-tionalistic
tariff barriers". The
challenge of the Soviet Union
was also discussed as was the
need of the free world to
"strengthen its strategic and
conventional capabilities."
Ford reflected on his pride felt
when other world leaders turn-ed
to the United States for relief
in the face of the Soviet threat:
"I was pleased that thought-ful
and knowledgable leaders
recognized the failure of the
Communist ideology and turned
to the United States where we
for 200 years have embraced
the philosophy of democratic
capitalism."
He was confident that the U.S.
would continue to assume this
role of leadership. He was con-cerned
however with the recent
trend of federal government ex-penditures
being directed more
toward "entitlements or
transfer payments" than
toward the Defense Depart-ment.
He repeated the warning
which he had directed to "his
liberal friends"—"A govern-ment
big enough to give us
everything we want is a govern-ment
big enough to take from us
everything we have." He prais-ed
President Reagan for his at-tempts
to maintain a balance
between the two poles of
"domestic pragram and na-tional
security."
Ford returned to his theme of
the responsibility of the United
States to "stand up and assume
the challenge" of being the
leader in the world. "I strongly
urge and recommend that the
United States assume the kind
of policies and programs that
will insure our strength so that
we can end up with the allies
that today stand with us.
The former president felt that
the United States' major
challenges in achieving this
goal were "establishing ap-propriate
fiscal and monetary
policies to maintain the mo-mentum
for a strong and
prosperous America, and mod-ernizing
and strengthening
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