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Southside Atlanta Citadel Club |
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VMI
and The Citadel – A True Band of Brothers
VMI and Citadel cadets go head to head in
a friendly game of Rugby. I am a Citadel graduate, class of ’69 (I
may look like class of 1869, but trust me, it’s 1969). You
notice I use the present tense; no military school graduate ever
saying he or she was a member of a particular class. VMI and The
Citadel are the only remaining non-federal 24/7 military
colleges in the USA. Having spent many years in the Air Force, I
have the unsubstantiated opinion that the government school
graduates (West Point, Air Force Academy, US Naval Academy)
identify more with their military branch; the Citadel and VMI
graduates more with their school and
class. That said, the natural next subject is
the so-called rivalry between these two schools. I believe the
Citadel-VMI rivalry simply doesn’t exist. Or, if it does, it is
a gentle and collegial rivalry, unlike any other. I believe it
has to do with the mindset of those who would train to be
soldiers, men and
women. I visited VMI recently for the military
basketball tournament (Army, Air Force, VMI, Citadel) and
attended the VMI-Citadel game with
my friend, Lee
(Citadel ’69) and his wife, Margie. I wore
my Citadel hat and was
uniformly treated with friendliness and respect. Lee, a math
professor at VMI, wore his Citadel hat,
yet he cheered for
VMI. While there, I began to see what he saw: the school colors
fading and both teams becoming one, rather like an inter-squad
practice. I was as pleased when VMI won as I would have been had
The Citadel won. What could cause this schizophrenia of
loyalty? I think it is the sharing of mutual suffering and
intent. Outside of VMI, no one other than a Citadel graduate can
understand the rigors of freshman year military demands
(essentially the Plebe system) while also trying to adjust to
their first year of college. Citadel graduates understand and
vice-verse. In my era of the anti-war sixties, the
graduates of both schools were respected within their respective
home states, but elsewhere we were called baby killers and
taunted by the flower children, the media, and Hollywood. So
there has always been shared suffering, both foreign and
domestic. It is, however, intent that most closely
joins us at the hip. We graduate to become military officers. We
choose our military branch and climb the promotion ladder by way of
individual excellence. We lack the patronage and good ol’-boy
network of the government schools (Example: the government schools
commission their seniors early so that they will outrank, by date of
commissioning, those Citadel and VMI graduates of the same year). We
go in harm’s way. When you hear about ‘a Band of Brothers,’ you are
hearing about us. Graduates from civilian colleges enter the
work force. Or they go on to professional sports. Citadel and VMI
graduates rarely qualify for professional sports. While college is
their highest athletic attainment, these athletes don’t cry over
lost games. We save our tears for the day when we will surely cry
over lost comrades in arms. We are gentle with each other because
athletic contests bear no resemblance to the battles we are being
groomed to join. At Normandy beach in France, VMI and Citadel
graduates are equally included in the cemetery there; the same for
Arlington National Military Cemetery. All of the graduates of these military
schools have been trained to counter-intuitively run toward, not
away from, the sounds of battle. Though I am old and will never
again be asked to run
toward the sound of rifle and cannon fire, I retain the firm belief
that I would trust a VMI graduate to watch my back as much as I
would a Citadel graduate. The peaceful sleep of American civilians
is due, in no small part, to the sacrifices of the graduates of
these two fine schools. When the graduates of these schools sing or
listen to their school’s fight songs, they alone hear the subtext of
a quavering bugle echoing Taps across a green field, dotted with
white crosses and Stars of David, blurring into the obscurity of a
distant mist. Rivalry? No. Competition? You bet. All of
these military schools’ graduates compete with themselves to be the
best damned soldier possible and thus bring pride back to their
school. Both schools have drawn a circle large enough to include the
other school. Citadel graduates, my brothers. VMI graduates, my
brothers. Sleep well, America. - Dennis Garvin |
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