ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
When is a riot not a riot? When it's a tradition, VMI-style.
Just after 11 p.m. a couple of weeks ago, hundreds of first-year cadets at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington poured out of their rooms and surged around the barracks making a racket, throwing trash cans into the courtyard, and tussling hand-to-hand with upperclassmen who tried to stop them.
The student newspaper, The Cadet, reported that the first-year students - known as "rats" in VMI parlance - had "rioted" inside their barracks and out. The rats were finally forced back into their rooms, the paper said, by upperclassmen who punched, kicked and swung belts at them.
The rats also took a 105 mm howitzer and rolled it up to the sleeping quarters of the president of the Rat Disciplinary Committee. Then they opened the window and pushed it in so the barrel was sticking inside.
"Rat Mass Runs Wild, Shakes Barracks to the 'Corps,'" the student paper's headline blared in bad-pun, tabloid style. A caption under a casually posed photo of grinning, roughhousing young cadets said: "A riotous mass of rats discover the pleasure of barracks destruction."
But the student paper's news editor, Christopher Lowe, says it's not really accurate to describe the unruly behavior as a "riot" - at least not in the way most people think of a riot.
Rats at the all-male college live under an elaborate system of discipline. When they're outside their rooms, they have to "strain," or assume an exaggerated position of attention.
For them to defy such prescriptions is the equivalent of riotous conduct in itself, Lowe said.
"So what they do is just run around and make noise. It's just kind of letting off some steam." It usually happens a couple of times a year, he said.
Such acts are typically seen as displays of "class unity" or, on occasion, protests against decisions by the powers that be. In the past, rats have gone into upperclassmen's rooms and dragged their mattresses outside.
Lowe believes the level of violence might have been a bit embellished in the article - which, he said, was actually written by one of the rats who participated. Almost all of the cadets in the 350-plus "rat mass" were involved and, if they had been truly rioting, they probably could have overwhelmed the handful of upperclassmen who confronted them, Lowe said.
VMI spokesman Mike Strickler confirmed that the rats had dumped some trash cans, a table and a door already off its hinges into the courtyard. He also confirmed, while trying to suppress a chuckle, that they indeed had shoved the howitzer barrel into the discipline chief's sleeping quarters - but he quickly added that the cannon was locked so it couldn't be fired.
For the most part, Strickler said, it appeared to be an acceptable show of class unity, even though some rats went overboard.
Col. Ron Williams, VMI's deputy commandant, was quoted in The Cadet as saying, "It bothers me that certain individuals cause misery and discomfort for the rat mass."
As punishment, the first-year cadets were called out of their rooms that night and invited to a "sweat party" of calisthenics and running.
As further discipline for the non-riot, all rats were given confinement to barracks and had their "hop" privileges revoked - meaning they can't leave the post, go to the student center or hold dance parties.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB