
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991                   TAG: 9104220264
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: T. J. TYSINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

KICKING THE KEYDETS/ COEDUCATION WILL UNDO THE PROCESS

THE PATH of this nation's recent history seems increasingly strewn with the hollowed-out remains of noble institutions that our well-meaning bureaucratic civil servants in Washington sought to "improve." The bell now tolls for Virginia Military Institute.

For more than 150 years, VMI has given this nation an extraordinary legion of citizen-soldiers, the contributions of whom are exemplary by any standard. The outstanding cumulative record that VMI men have established is, by universal agreement, the ultimate product of the VMI process.

It is a sometimes intimidating, sometimes crude, most-of-the-time fair, but always demanding process that seeks to strip away the prideful self-centered nature of the individual cadet and replace it with self-confidence, self-discipline, devotion to duty and a fierce loyalty to fellow cadets and school.

If that product is to continue to be produced, the process must be preserved. The Spartan, all-male, no-place-to-hide environment of the VMI barracks is as fundamental to the process as is the Rat Line: Some of the things that must be said and done can only be said and done in a cloistered yet totally accessible arena, where no participant may retreat from the rigors and scrutiny of the process.

Think what you will about the process, but there are few who know VMI who don't feel some considerable admiration for the product.

If women are admitted to VMI, both men and women will get a reduced dosage of the excellent prescription that for 151 years has made rare men from spoiled and overindulged boys.

What a shame that the collective wisdom - and unique process - of a century and a half might be sacrificed in the name of equal accessibility. What a shame that Virginia Military Institute should have found itself in a federal court, not just defending its magnificent record, but fighting for its very life.

How venerable and how good must an institution be, before it has the right to protection from certain destruction at the hands of a legalistic minority that cares not one whit for its noble heritage?

T. J. Tysinger of Augusta County is a 1966 graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, also an all-male institution.

by CNB