VMI Cadet. December 7, 2012

              “To Inform the VMI Community”
Sports
Track Dominates in Ohio
Rugby awards
Beckham Leaves MLS
Features
Fair Speciemens of
citizen soldiers
NFL player's death rattles
the league
Humor
THE CADET ONE OF THE
OLDEST COLLEGE
NEWSPAERS
INDEPENDENTLY
RUN BY CADETS
SINCE 1907
VOLUME 106 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2012 ISSUE 11 $2.00
1907 2012
The Cadet @
www.cadetpublications.com
The Cadet, student newspaper of the
Virginia Military Institute, was estab-lished
in the Fall of 1907 and has been
continued since that time. Our news-paper
is published every Friday after-noon
during the academic year, except
during Corps trips, holidays and exam
periods. The Cadet offices are located
in the Third Barracks Concourse .
T o o r d e r a s u b s c r i p t i o n
of t he Ne ws p a p e r c on t a c t :
The Cadet EIC Phone:
VMI Box 7 (571) 275-6124
Lexington, VA Office E-mail:
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body for all cadet publications.
Periodicals postage paid- Lexington, VA
P o s t a l N u m b e r : U S P 6 5 4 - 8 8 0
The Cade t i s publ i shed we ek -
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Contents
News 1
Features 2
Entertainment -
Sports 3-5
Humor 6
Obama said. “And that skill
set of trying to figure out
how do we make some-thing
work better applies
to the federal government.”
T h e p r e s i d e n t , w h o
once talked about building a
“team of rivals” in his Cabi-net,
was not entertaining a
Romney appointment, his
spokesman later confirmed.
The White House offered
only the broadest description
of their conversation: “The
focus of their discussion was
on America’s leadership in the
world and the importance of
maintaining that leadership
position in the future.” The
meeting ended with a vague
promise “to stay in touch.”
Unlike past post-campaign
meetings, this one did not
include a media photo op.
The visual then, instead of
unity or comity, was of a
winner and a loser. Photog-raphers
snapped photos of
Romney entering the White
House from a side entrance.
The White House later
released its own photo: the
men exchanging a hand-shake
in the Oval Office.
Romney was prompt —
but not too eager — arriving
in an SUV at 12:29 p.m. for
the 12:30 date. He showed
no outward signs of a man
who had been stripped of his
dream and his day job. With
his dark suit, impeccable hair
and grin, he still looked every
bit the part he did not get.
Meeting with the man
who crushed your hopes is a
peculiar — some might say
cruel — bit of American politi-cal
theater. Still it’s become
a post-campaign tradition.
It began when then-Sen.
John F. Kennedy met with
Richard Nixon in Key Biscayne,
Fla., after the razor-thin 1960
race, presidential historian
Douglas Brinkley said. “As a
healing pow-wow, it played
so well because it spoke of
bipartisanship,” Brinkley said.
Obama met with Sen.
John McCain in Chicago in
2008. They posed for pho-tos
sitting side-by-side in
overstuffed chairs, mak-in
g aw k wa rd c h i t- c h a t .
M c C a i n l o o k e d t e n s e ;
Obama, cool and relaxed.
Vice President Al Gore
flew back from St. Thomas,
Virgin Islands, where he’d
been recuperating from his
bruising defeat in 2000, for his
meeting with George W. Bush.
He came out of the vice
president’s residence to wel-come
Bush with an awk-ward
back pat. They met
for less than 20 minutes.
Perhaps the strangest
rendezvous was between
then-Vice President George
H.W. Bush and another de-feated
Massachusetts gover-nor.
After Bush and Michael
Dukakis walked out to a
microphone in the White
House driveway, Bush told
reporters he was “very grate-ful
to him for the spirit of this
visit” and then left Dukakis in
the driveway with reporters.
The Democrat criticized
Bush’s economic policies.
“The chickens are coming
home to roost,” Dukakis said.
Romney made no pub-lic
comments on Thurs-day.
Neither did Obama.
The public may have
to wait a while before find-ing
out out what was said.
“That comes out in some-body’s
memoir,” Brinkley said.
OBAMA AND ROMNEY MEET
By By Kathleen Hennessey and Christi Parsons
LA Times
little more than an hour later.
The lunch date was, per-haps
not surprisingly, the
winner’s idea. Obama an-nounced
his intentions in
his victory speech, aiming
to demonstrate bipartisan
inclinations with the overture.
But the president, who
never expressed respect for
Romney’s political skills dur-ing
the campaign, seemed
to have trouble describing
the purpose. Unlike some
defeated candidates, Rom-ney
doesn’t hold public of-fice
and doesn’t represent
a powerful constituency.
Obama suggested the
former Massachusetts gover-nor
and business executive,
who ran the 2002 Winter
Olympics, could act as some
sort of efficiency consultant.
“I do think he did a terrific
job running the Olympics,”
WASHINGTON — Their
relationship seemed doomed
from the start. It was mostly
a long-distance affair con-ducted
in public exchanges,
tempered by occasional awk-ward
gestures of warmth but
more often singed by open
hostility. It most likely ended,
mercifully, Thursday over
white turkey chili and South-western
grilled chicken salad.
President Obama and
the vanquished Mitt Romney
ate lunch in a private dining
room steps from the Oval
Office, the seat of power
they battled over for months;
some might say years.
The meeting, a decades-old
tradition between former
rivals, put a bow on an other-wise
ugly race marked by very
few attempts to pretend the
candidates liked each other.
Until Thursday, that is, when
a smiling Romney stopped by
the White House. He left a
Will president Obama appoint
Mitt Romney for Secretary of
Defense? Or perhaps,
Secretary of the Treasury?
-----------------------------
Bipartisanship is clearly needed
to avoid the notorious "fiscal
cliff"
-----------------------------
Obama and Romney: "pledged
to stay in touch."
By Connor Diesing ‘14
Cadet News Writer
The excitement
came to a head at the be-ginning
of “Ring Week”
the week preceding ring
figure where the class be-gins
ring figure festivities.
Every morning the First
Sergeants of each company
announce the days left until
the Ring Ceremony. This is
a fun reminder for the class
and a way to announce
to the corps that ring fig-ure
was in fact this year.
Thursday evening is
the first official Ring Figure
event, the class dinner. This
event is where the class
and only the class come to-gether
in high spirits to re-ceive
their class rings. This
year 2014’s class dinner
was attended by General
Peay and Warren J. “Buddy”
Bryan ’71 who announced
the class winner of the
Doug France award. Cadet
Rehnie Merhige the head
of the ring figure received
the award for the class.
November 16th was
the ring presentation and
ring ball, which both par-ents
and dates attended.
The Ring Presentation was
held in Cameron hall where
towards the end of fall se-mester
as the class began
designing their ring and
picking the ring figure com-mittee.
It was only until the
spring semester of third
class year did the class of
2014 see the final ring de-sign
and begin the exciting
process of choosing their
specific ring’s stone and
weight. With each step in
the ring figure process, the
excitement and anticipation
grew as the date drew near.
The class of 2014
celebrated their ring fig-ure
on November 16th,
2012. This is the celebra-tion
of the 2014 not only
getting their rings, but
also their entrance to “the
brotherhood of the ring”.
Preparations for
ring figure began last year
General Peay addressed the
class before they received
their rings. He imparted his
words of advice for the class
saying, “Wear your ring
with honor, wear your ring
with a sense of duty, wear
your ring with great pride,
just wear your ring…” The
VMI ring is “visual motiva-tion
for us to continue living
with honor and excellence”
as Cadet Merhige said as
he addressed the class. Af-ter
the entire class received
their rings, they formed
their class number, fourteen
and did an old yell for the
best class in barracks 2014,
and sang the VMI doxol-ogy.
After the presenta-tion,
cadets when out to
dinner with their families
and dates before returning
to the Center of Leader-ship
and Ethics for the Ring
Ball. Here cadets entered
through a sabre arch set up
by the class of 2015. The
dance itself had an excel-lent
swing band and the
class enjoyed group pic-ture
with their companies,
roommates, brother rats
and dates. Every cadet and
their date walked through
the ring and had their class
ring placed on their finger
for the first time since re-ceiving
it earlier that day.
After the ceremo-nies
cadet made their way
back to the hotels on route
11 for some additional cel-ebration
and brother rat
bonding. The second class
had a second night of cel-ebration
on Saturday at the
class Tent Party. Here DJ 5
and a Dime got the class
of 2014 excited to begin a
final night of celebration at
the hotels. The weekend
that 2014 had will be one
that they will remember
for the rest of their lives.
On a personal note, as a
member of the class of
2014 I would like to thank
all the members of our GC
and Ring Figure Committee,
with all of you we could not
have had such an awesome
time. A special thanks to
Ben Travers and Chih-Yuan
Chen for painting the rings
inside and outside of bar-racks,
they looked great.
And finally, a thanks to all
my Brother Rats in 2014,
that was one of the best
weekends I have ever had.
We have a year and a half
left, let finish strong and
wear our rings with pride.
EXCITEMENT OF RING FIGURE
Photos Courtesy of http://www.trbimg.com/img-50b7eca7/turbine/lat-oromney-wre0007245066-20121129/600
Photos Courtesy of http://weknowmemes.com/