VMI Cadet. April 24, 1987

              ®hc l-iMJ. Olaiirt*
9 America's Last Independent College Newspaper
VOLUME L X X V II Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, April 24,1987 N U M B E R 24
CoL Barrett Retires
by Eric Buchanan
At the end of this school year,
VMI will be losing one of its
most influencial and talented
professors. This loss will be felt
by almost all people associated
with VMI. This man is Col. John
G. Barrett. His retirement is
probably the most tragic to
those who will attend VMI in the
future and will not have a
chance to learn from Col. Bar-rett.
Col. Barrett has often been
referred to as an important part
of the VMI experience.
Col Barrett has been teaching
at VMI since 1953, and with the
exception of summer school,
has taught nowhere else. He has
been a visiting professor at such
schools as Tulane, UVa and
Washington and Lee. VMI's
most published professor, he
has written three boolcs and is
editing three others.
Col. Barrett teaches
American History and Civil
War History, which is the area
of his expertise. Possibly his
most important book was the
first to cover Sherman's March
through the Carolinas. His class
lectures are almost always en-joyable
and invariably in-teresting,
made so by his vast
knowledge and personal in-terest
in the subject. Adding to
the interest of his lectures are
his own anectotes, many
relating his experiences as a
Naval reserve officer in the
Pacific in World War II.
The Cadet staff recently in-terviewed
Col. Barrett to find
out his plans for retirement,
what he has learned and ex-perienced
in his years of
teaching, as well as his at-titudes
toward the Institute.
Premier in Col. Barrett's at-titude
toward VMI is his ap-proval
of its finished product.
He states that VMI, like all
systems has faults, but it must
be doing something right to pro-duce
the alumni it does. When
asked what he would change
Col. Barrett mentioned shorten-ing
the Rat Line, and forcing all
of the faculty to wear uniforms.
He also questions the "produc-tiveness"
of Saturday classes.
Col. Barrett also felt that he
saw "no appreciable dif-ference"
between cadets in the
class room at VMI and students
at other schools. His approach
to teaching is the same whether
he is teaching at VMI, or
teaching at W&L. He feels that
"cadets are just as responsive
as (students) elsewhere. You
have a built-in advantage of
(continued on page 7)
First Class Takes Punitive
Action Against Seconds
by Lloyd Bell
Last Friday, the class of 1987
celebrated their last birthday in
barracks amid the open hostil-ities
of members of the lower
three classes. What began as a
traditional celebration soon
digressed into a heated ex-change
of obscenities for which
the second class was held whol-ly
responsible. Due to their
refusal to apologize for the inci-dent,
the First Class under the
leadership of Neal Naff
recanted most of the Second
Class' privileges.
According to many First
Classmen, the incident began
when toilet paper and other ob-jects
were thrown on the First
Class. Second Class President
Adam Volant denied, however
that the Second Class was the
sole instigator. He claiined
that "the majority of the paper
started from the fourth stoop."
Even though the second class
did participate, he did not see
these actions as "the root of any
major problem." Naff dis-agreed.
"The idea of a First
Class being treated that way is
incomprehensible," he said.
Many Second Classmen be-lieve
the incident Ijegan when
members of 87 made obscene
gestures at the underclasses.
Volant claimed that immediate-ly
following '87's old yell "a ma-jority
(of firsts) turned to the
upper three stoops and gave the
middle finger with their uprais-ed
arms." Naff claims that "we
didn't do it unprovoked," and
very few did it at all.
Whatever the case, the Sec-ond
Class is being held responsi-ble
for the night's events much
to the consternation of Volant
who believes his class is playing
the scapegoat for actions in
which all the underclasses were
involved. However, Naff claims
that "they participated to a
greater extent, a greater
number, and to a nastier degree
than any of the other classes."
Naff sees the Second Class as
"Corps leaders" who influenced
the actions of the third and
fourth class on the night of the
party. Volant disagrees. "No
one particular class' actions
lead the other," he claims.
"Your proposed 'punitive ac-tion'
is nothing more than singl-ing
out one element of an entire
unit in order to make an exam-ple."
Naff commented that "re-spect
is obligatory" by virtue of
being in the First Class. He
pointed at the General Commit-tee's
role in assuring proper
respect is paid for the up-perclasses.
If respect is not
"obligatory," he argued, "than
why is it a penalty when it
is not received"? Volant coun-tered
that "the respect you de-mand
is not a valid request
after the right you had was
sacrificed by your middle
finger."
Consequently, Naff did indeed
take "punitive action" against
the second class resulting in the
loss of most of their privileges,
in an attempt to "send a mes-sage"
to the rest of the corps
and reaffirm First Class
authority. The action may pro-ve
to be purely symbolic; how-ever,
due to upcoming exams
and the arrival of graduation.
Whether Naff's "message" will
be received by the Corps is
debatable, but the friction and
animosity among the two
classes will definitely be
vicmedas an unfortunate con-clusion
to an otherwise suc-cessful
vear.
The entire Cadet staff wishes Col. Barrett an en-joyable
retirement.
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