RACHEL LOVE
Emmaus, Pa.

Love came to VMI seeking a military commission and instead found, um, love.

The track team captain is apparently the first VMI cadet to find a husband in the corps. She and a member of the class of 2000, whom she won't name, will be married a week after graduation.

"He was a flamer," Love said of her fiance's penchant for harassing rats. "He was one of the mean guys."

Female cadets who were rats when he was a senior come to Love and say, "So, is he nice to you?"

Love herself took no pleasure in abusing rats. "I could never, uh-uh," she said. In VMI parlance, which has resisted deference to females, Love is considered a "rat daddy," someone who coddles the freshmen.

When she was a rat, the stress of the experience even invaded her slumber. She would sleep in the exaggerated position of attention called "straining."

She's keeping the military in her life by enlisting in the National Guard, but her career hope is to teach high school history in Pennsylvania.