VMI Cadet. December 1, 1988

              VMI's Last Stand!
Wat l l . i f l J . Olaiiet
"One of America's Most Rebellious Newspapers'
VOLUME LXXVIII Virginia^ilitary Institute, Lexington, Virginia December 1,1988 NUMBER 12
Class of '89 Takes A Stand
By: Eric Buchanan
Wednesday, November 16,
the first class relieved the admin-istration
of control of barracks,
and look back what they con-sider
to be rightfully theirs. At
2200 hours, a guard team made
entirely of first classmen re-lieved
the assigned cadet guards.
The class of '89 took this action
after the administration failed to
respect the opinions of the first
class leadership. In the words of
Ned Cox, First Class President,
the class leadership's "input is
not listened to or not even wan-ted."
Mr. Cox stressed that these ac-tions
did not constitute a "step
off." Cadets would continue to
attend classes and formations,
and all status checks would re-main
in effect. Mr. Cox further
stressed that the Corps would act
with professionalism and matu-rity
in order to prove that the
Corps can handle control of bar-racl
«.
Mr. Cox stated that these ac-tions
were taken in response to a
series of usurptions of the first
class's control of barracks. He
stated that these losses of au-thority
had taken place over the
last two years. TTie straw that
broke the camel's back occurred
when the administration pro-posed
six changes that affected
the first class's authority over
the corps and ratline. When
leaders of the first class discuss-ed
these changes with the Super-intendent,
he refused to budge,
so the Class of '89 took action.
The proposed changes in-cluded:
1) Assigned seats in the
m6ss hall; 2) Rats would be al-lowed
to eat as much as they
want at meals; 3) Rats would not
march up from meals; 4) Rats
would not read their rat bibles in
the mess hall; 5) Cadets-in-
Charge (C-I-Cs) would be assig-ned
for the mess hall and for
company areas in the mess hall'
and 6) The corps would come to
attention when the Tactical offi-cer
enters the mess hall. Two of
the proposed changes are irrele-vant,
because the corps already
comes to attention for the Tac,
and the corps sits in company
areas.
Mr. Cox stressed three goals
for the corps. First, there will be
the restoration of first class au-thority
in barracks. The resto-
See '89 page 3
National News:
Bush Takes Charge
The VMI Cadet National
News by Dan Franzen
George Bush won the Presi-dential
election on 8 November.
Bush immediately named James
A. Bater III, his campaign
chairman, as the new Secretary
of State. This week, he nomi-nated
Nicholas F. Brady, the
current Secretary of the Trea-sury,
to retain that job. No other
nominations are immediately
expected from Bush, though ex-perts
believe he has narrowed
the field to only a few for several
Cabinet positions. Bush has said
he will attempt to stabilize the
dollar and the exchange marker.
However, he is still attempting
to "coordinate his policy" on
several economic issues.
The South Carolina Supreme
Court unanimously overturned
the death sentence of a retarded
man this week. The Court ruled
that the man had unknowingly
waived his right to a jury trial,
and thus was improperly senten-ced.
While his conviction was
not affected, the case's pros-ecutor
must still seek a new
death sentence in the case.
One Cadets Complaint
A Commentary
By James Cox
It has been a strange few
weeks at VMI only to end in the
same groove. I like to write arti-cles
that are funny and entertain-ing,
but I do not see anything
humorous lately. I see a clouded
ftjture looming on what I used to
think was a bright horizon. I
have worked over two years to
reach this weekend and attain a
goal I once set of getting a ring.
At the same point I see this goal
diminished by the fact that that
ring is on the verge of being tar-nished
by people in the position
of doing so. I am writing this ar-ticle
in the wee hours of Thurs-day
morning, so perhaps all will
have been for naught, but I
would like to expound on a few
things, with a little prejudice in-volved.
It is no secret that the
first class president is my
brother. People who know me
know that this usually does not
keep me from condemning the
Corps' leadership whether it be
the English stx'iety movies or the
lack of GP after a fcxnball vic-tory.
This week pnxiuced ins-pired
Corps' leadership. The
leaders of the Corps have done
what 1 envisioned men would do
when pressed beyond reprieve.
They have acted as 1 always
thought VMI men would act be-fore
I came to VMI.
But something is rotten, it is
the reason for which these men
have had to ' bind the Corps''
together tightly for the first time
in years. There are no schisms in
what they have formed. For too
long, the administration has
abused the Corps and its leaders
by imposing new rules and regu-lations
without consulting the
reality of barracks. The people
at the top are out of touch with
the people they govern, they
have left the wants and needs of
the Corps at the bottom of their
list of priorities. I do not know
what these priorities are, but
they seldom if ever touch on
what cadets feel.
It is Ring Figure weekend and
it starts on a bad note. VMI is
heading into its 150th year of
producing honorable men, but
this could be changed to honora-ble
yes men. Finally the First
class has crowded around the
ring and they all threw in their
hats. It may be that some will be
(continued on page 3)