Virginia Military Institute

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Virginia Military Institute sits on 134 acres in Lexington, Virginia, and it has been asking something of its students from the very first day its gates opened in 1839: give up your bed, your television, your ease. Give up, in other words, nearly everything that defines ordinary college life. In exchange, you get something else entirely. VMI was founded as America's first state-sponsored military college, and it remains the only public senior military college in the United States that enrolls cadets exclusively. No civilian students attend. Every person who walks those grounds wears a uniform. Every person who walks those grounds is a soldier-in-training who chose to be there.

  The school has produced more Army generals than any ROTC program in the country. One of its graduates was called the "Architect of Victory" by Winston Churchill. Another was the only career military officer ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet VMI, with its enrollment of roughly 1,700 cadets, is one of the smallest NCAA Division I schools in the nation. Its story is one of fierce tradition, painful contradiction, military glory, and a reckoning with the racism and misogyny baked into its walls. The questions this documentary will explore: How did a small arsenal town in Virginia produce an institution of such outsized military influence? What do cadets actually experience inside those barracks? And what happens when an institution built on honor confronts a history that dishonors some of its own members?

• 2. A School Born from an Arsenal

  ›

  In 1826, a soldier at the Lexington arsenal beat a fellow guard to death. That single act of violence set in motion the events that created VMI. The town wanted to keep the arsenal and its weapons cache, but it wanted nothing to do with the soldiers assigned to protect it. Local residents saw them as drunken and undisciplined, and the killing confirmed every fear.

  The Franklin Society, a local literary and debate society, took up the question in 1834: would it be wise for Virginia to establish a military school at the arsenal? They voted unanimously that it would. The most active champion of that idea was a Lexington attorney named John Thomas Lewis Preston. In 1835, he published a series of three anonymous letters in the Lexington Gazette, proposing to replace the guard with students who would live under military discipline while receiving both military and liberal education. Preston argued the school's graduates would train officers for the state militia and contribute to Virginia's development.

  Preston's campaign reached influential figures in business, military, and politics. In 1836, the Virginia legislature passed a bill authorizing the school, and the governor signed it into law. The new board of visitors included Preston himself, and the board selected as its first president Claudius Crozet, a man with a remarkable resume. Crozet had served as an engineer in Napoleon Bonaparte's army before emigrating to the United States, where he became an engineering professor at West Point, then state engineer in Louisiana, then mathematics professor at Jefferson College in Convent, Louisiana. Thomas Jefferson had called Crozet "the smartest mathematician in the United States." Crozet was also Virginia's Chief Engineer at the time of his appointment.

  Under Crozet's guidance, the board modeled VMI's curriculum on two institutions: the United States Military Academy and Crozet's own alma mater, the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris. Preston had imagined a mix of military and liberal education; what the board created was a military and engineering school with what its founders described as the most thorough engineering curriculum in America outside of West Point. Preston was also the one who named the institution "Virginia Military Institute", a task delegated to him by the board.

  For VMI's first superintendent, Preston recruited Francis Henney Smith, a West Point graduate and former Army officer then teaching mathematics at Hampden-Sydney College. Smith agreed to become the first superintendent and Professor of Tactics. Preston himself then applied to join the faculty and was hired as Professor of Languages. The institution functioned as a department of Washington College from 1836 to 1839, supported by funding from the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati. On the 11th of November 1839, it formally separated. The first class consisted of 30 regular cadets and 13 paying cadets, and the first cadet to march a sentinel post was Private John Strange.

• 3. The Civil War Years

  ›

  On the 15th of May 1864, 247 VMI cadets marched into pitched combat at the Battle of New Market. They had covered 80 miles overnight from Lexington, ordered into service by the governor of Virginia the day before. General John C. Breckinridge, the commanding Confederate general, had kept them in reserve. When Union troops broke through Confederate lines, Breckinridge faced a decision he clearly did not want to make. His reported words before committing the cadets to the fight were: "Put the boys in...and may God forgive me for the order."

  The cadets held the line, pushed forward across an open muddy field, captured a Union artillery position, and helped secure a Confederate victory. In minutes, VMI suffered fifty-five casualties. Five cadets were killed in action that day. Five more died of wounds in the weeks that followed. Colonel Scott Shipp, the Commandant of Cadets who led them into battle, was himself wounded. The American Battlefield Trust has recognized this as the only time in U.S. history when the student body of an operating college fought as an organized unit in pitched combat.

  Long before New Market, VMI alumni and cadets had shaped the conflict. During the war, approximately 1,800 VMI alumni served the Confederacy, with about 250 killed in action. Fifteen graduates rose to the rank of general in the Confederate Army; one rose to general in the Union Army. VMI alumni were present on the Union side as well, where several distinguished themselves. Just before his famous flank attack at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson surveyed his commanders and noted how many were VMI graduates. He said, "The Institute will be heard from today." Two of his four division commanders at Chancellorsville, Generals Robert Rodes and Raleigh Colston, were VMI men, as were more than twenty of his brigadiers and colonels.

  The Confederacy called cadets into active military engagements on fourteen separate occasions during the war. VMI authorized battle streamers for each, but chose to carry only one: New Market. A month after that battle, on the 12th of June 1864, Union forces under General David Hunter shelled and burned the institute. The destruction of the buildings was nearly complete, and VMI had to hold classes temporarily at the Alms House in Richmond. The museum, established only a decade earlier, was also destroyed. One recorded consequence of VMI's destruction: Confederate General Jubal A. Early burned the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in part as retaliation.

• 4. George Marshall and World War II

  ›

  George C. Marshall, class of 1901, became the most consequential military leader the United States produced in the twentieth century. He was the top U.S. Army general during World War II, the Army's first five-star general, and the only career military officer ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 1953. Winston Churchill called him the "Architect of Victory" and "the noblest Roman of them all."

  Marshall's VMI connection did not make him an outlier in World War II command; it placed him at the center of a constellation of VMI graduates who shaped the Allied war effort. The Deputy Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during the war was a VMI graduate. So were the commander of the Second U.S. Army, the commander of the 15th U.S. Army, and the commander of Allied Air Forces of the Southwest Pacific. Division and corps commanders throughout the Army and Marine Corps included VMI alumni.

  One of the more striking VMI alumni of that era came from outside the United States. General Sun Li-jen of China, who graduated in 1927, was known as the "Rommel of the East" for his battlefield performance. During the war, VMI also hosted the Army Specialized Training Program from 1943 to 1946, a War Department initiative that brought engineering training to enlisted men at colleges across the country. Over 2,100 ASTP members studied at VMI during that period.

  The table of VMI four-star generals stretches well beyond World War II. John P. Jumper, class of 1966, served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force from 2001 to 2005. Darren W. McDew, class of 1982, commanded the United States Transportation Command from 2015 to 2018. Dan Caine, class of 1990, became the 211th four-star general in U.S. Air Force history and serves as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as of July 2025. VMI alumni include more than 285 general and flag officers in total, along with seven recipients of the Medal of Honor and more than 80 recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross and Navy Cross combined.

• 5. The Ratline and Cadet Life

  ›

  New cadets at VMI are called "Rats", a term in use since at least the 1850s. VMI folklore holds that Washington College students coined the name in the 1830s, possibly mocking the gray uniforms cadets wore. The cadets reportedly responded by calling the Washington College students "Minks", a jab at their wealthy backgrounds.

  For the first six months, Rats walk along prescribed routes in the barracks while maintaining an exaggerated posture called "straining." They are not permitted to watch television or listen to music outside of an academic setting. They sleep on foam mats called "hays" rather than beds, rolling them each morning and airing them every Monday. This regimen begins with "Hell Week," during which upper-class cadets called Cadre teach Rats to march, to clean their M14 rifle, and to wear their uniforms correctly.

  At the end of the first week, each Rat is paired with a senior cadet called a "Dyke." The word derives from an older Southern pronunciation of "to deck out," meaning to dress in uniform. One of the Rat's roles is to help prepare their Dyke's uniform for parades. The Rat Mass, as the collective body of new cadets is called, is not officially considered a graduating class until after Breakout, the culminating ceremony of the Ratline experience. Before Breakout, the group is identified by a "year plus three" system: the Class of 2022, for example, was designated the "Rat Mass of 2019+3."

  Breakout ceremonies have changed over decades. In the 1950s, Rats from each company would brawl their way out of a corner room through waiting upperclassmen. Through the 1960s-1980s, they had to fight their way up through three levels of cadets on stoops slicked with motor oil, snow, or ice. When the stairs and rails could no longer bear the damage, the ceremony moved to a muddy hill where Rats crawled on their stomachs while upperclassmen blocked or dragged them back. Today the event is a day of physical activity testing endurance and teamwork, culminating in the Rats being formally welcomed to the VMI community.

  Beyond the Ratline, VMI traditions include a nightly playing of Taps, the Ring Figure dance held each November when juniors receive class rings, and the annual New Market Day parade on May 15. Since 2021, the New Market ceremony has expanded to honor all VMI graduates who have died in military service, not only those who fell in 1864. The honor code that governs cadet conduct allows only one punishment for violations: a drumming-out ceremony in which the entire corps is awakened and the formal dismissal is announced. VMI is the only military college or academy in the country that maintains a single-sanction honor code of this kind.

• 6. Women, Minorities, and Resistance

  ›

  The first Jewish cadet to graduate from VMI was Moses Jacob Ezekiel, class of 1866. While a student, Ezekiel had fought with the cadets at New Market. He later became a sculptor, and two of his works stand on VMI grounds: a statue called Virginia Mourning Her Dead, dedicated in 1903, and a replica statue of General Jackson donated in 1912. Six of the ten cadets who died at New Market are buried on VMI grounds behind Ezekiel's memorial.

  VMI was the last public college in Virginia to admit Black students, doing so in 1968. The first African-American regimental commander was Darren McDew, class of 1982. VMI did not admit women until decades after most comparable institutions. In 1990, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a discrimination lawsuit over the all-male admissions policy. A state-sponsored alternative, the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, was created as a parallel program while the legal challenge proceeded.

  On the 26th of June 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in United States v. Virginia that it was unconstitutional for a publicly funded school to exclude women. Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself, reportedly because his son was attending VMI at the time. VMI briefly considered going private to avoid the 14th Amendment and the ruling. Assistant Secretary of Defense Frederick Pang warned that doing so would cost the school its ROTC programs. Congress then passed a resolution on the 18th of November 1997, prohibiting the Defense Department from withdrawing ROTC programs from any of the six senior military colleges. That protection arrived after the VMI Board of Visitors had already voted 9-8 to admit women; the decision was not revisited. Superintendent Josiah Bunting III described the outcome as a "savage disappointment."

  In August 1997, thirty women enrolled as part of the class of 2001. They were initially required to meet the same physical standards as male cadets and were required to shave their heads. The first female cadets graduated in 1999 under VMI's reckoning, though formally listed as members of the class of 2001.

  Racial problems persisted long after the school's nominal integration. In October 2020, Governor Ralph Northam, a 1981 VMI alumnus, and five other senior Virginia officials wrote the VMI Board of Visitors expressing concern about what they described as a "clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism." Students had reported threats of lynching, social media attacks, and a staff member promoting what the letter called "an inaccurate and dangerous 'Lost Cause' version of Virginia's history." The letter was signed by Northam, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, State Senate President Louise Lucas, Attorney General Mark Herring, and Black Caucus Chairman Lamont Bagby. Six days later, on the 26th of October 2020, Superintendent Peay resigned, stating he had been told that Northam and state legislators had "lost confidence in my leadership" and "desired my resignation."

  In 2021, the board appointed Cedric T. Wins, a VMI class of 1985 graduate, as the first Black superintendent. An independent report commissioned by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, prepared by the law firm Barnes and Thornburg, concluded that VMI had "maintained and allowed a racist and sexist culture that, until recently, it had no appetite to address." The board voted not to extend Wins' contract on the 28th of February 2025. His successor, David Furness, class of 1987, assumed the role of sixteenth superintendent.

• 7. A Campus Built on History

  ›

  The VMI campus is formally called "the Post," a term borrowed from military usage that reflects the school's continuous identity as a uniformed military institution. Its 134 acres include 12 designated as a National Historic Landmark District. The Old Barracks, built on the site of the original Lexington arsenal, holds its own designation as a National Historic Landmark.

  All cadets live in a large five-story barracks complex. Rooms open onto porch-like stoops facing one of two quadrangles connected by a sally port. A third barracks wing was completed with cadets moving in during the spring semester of 2009. Four of the five arched entries into the barracks are named for George Washington, Thomas Jackson, George C. Marshall of the class of 1901, and Jonathan Daniels of the class of 1961.

  VMI's "Vision 2039" capital campaign raised more than $275 million from alumni and supporters in three years. The funds are being used to expand the barracks to house 1,500 cadets and renovate academic buildings. The school is also spending $200 million to build a VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics, intended for use by cadets, students from Washington and Lee University, and U.S. and international students. The campaign also supports study abroad programs, including joint ventures with Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

  The VMI Museum System encompasses three sites: the main VMI Museum on the Post, the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at the 300-acre New Market Battlefield State Historical Park, and the Jackson House, interpreting the life of Thomas Jackson and his household on the eve of the Civil War. The main museum holds more than 20,000 artifacts. Among them are the mounted hide of Little Sorrel, Stonewall Jackson's horse; displays about seven Medals of Honor awarded to VMI alumni; materials documenting the career of George C. Marshall; and the Stewart Firearms Collection, which totals over 800 pieces. The museum traces its origins to a letter dated the 27th of February 1845, in which Superintendent Smith wrote to VMI Class of 1843 graduate William S. Beale soliciting items to inspire and educate cadets. Smith accepted a Revolutionary War musket in 1856, establishing what is recognized as the first public museum in the Commonwealth of Virginia.