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Page 16 text:
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HISTORY OF THE CLASS OF 1963 It was real, remarked a girl to her date at the couchision of a weekend the ])air had spent together. The remark coiiuoled several things: first, tlie experience was worthwhile; second, the exjjerience was marred with unpleasantnesses as well as hapj)y moments; third, her recollection would refuse, later, to remember only the good or to forget the bad moments. The value of a remembered experience dei ends largely on the strength and breadth of the remembrance. The Class of 1963 does not carry away from the Institute the happiest of memories of its days at the ' MI. In the fullness of time, it will come to realize that which has been learned here has been of inestimable value; but, again, that which has been learned has not, of necessity, been pleasant. The cadet ' s life is not totally a happy one. If he is not mature, he will fail to look beneath the surface of the petty altercations, the rugged moments, and recog- nize only the interminable pressure that they have, with unrelenting monotony, put on him. The Class of 1963 occupies a unicjue niche in VMI history, for it has seen two radically different systems of training and education at work. It has lived under two systems: one, relatively lenient, willing, perhaps, to give a break or to recognize exceptions to set situations, the other tirelessly adhering to the citizen soldier function of the Institute. Under such a dichotomy of educational ])hilosophies, only fifty per cent of the late adolescents who stood sweating in Jackson Arch in September of 1959 have survived to be graduated as Brother Rats.
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Page 17 text:
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Norman A. Skiiiroixl. Jr., I ' ice-l uloH: ■ iiUu K. AoHJs, I ' rr.-.-nlent: (. c, 111, ll,.- tnTian. CLASS OFFICERS The Class of 1963 likes to envision itself as having suffered a tough Ratline. By late standards, it was tough. There were mornings of pain and anguish spent in pre- reveille battle drill. This has gone. There were the rooms of unpleasant third classmen to be visited — for purposes other than military instruction. There were tasks and duties to be performed not to our especial liking. There were pains of a more immediate physical nature to be endured. They were. The VMI was changing. New men with new ideas were appointed over us. To their demands, we had to acquiesce, .suspicious of the stentorian voice of authority, warily making the transition. The meaning behind many of the new regulations was lost; only a few of the more mature men were ever able to fathom the sweeping changes. Sardonically, many regulations were accepted with the old saw, It builds character. Has it always built the desired character? That question must be an- swered only in the fullness cf time, perhaps on a hill in Viet Xam, perhaps on Wall Street, perhaps in a laboratory. As college students, we have taken ourselves pas- sionatel.v seriously. To take oneself seriously always is a mistake — already we realize it. The feeling that our priv- ileges and prerogatives ha ' e been usurped each and every time a minor change in regidations has been effected has caused concern out of proportion to the actual merit of the situations. There have been causes for concern: let us not confuse them with the irrelevant and the imma- terial. The pettj ' causes fade; the significant issues must stand in our memories as points worth consideration. Not all has been tension and unproductive strife, for the Class of 1963 has seen the production of three championship football teams, a first place trophy in. a
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