TAMINA MARS
Prince George

Just a few weeks before she was to graduate, Mars learned that the reason she came to VMI -- a military commission -- was not to be.

She was medically disqualified from military service. Mars, 22, wouldn't elaborate on the reason.

Her mother had wanted her piano- and saxophone-playing daughter to go to Juilliard. The influence of her father, an Army supply sergeant, won out.

Mars, a biology major, does play sax in the VMI band, though. And whenever some lazy piano tunes are needed for background music during an alumni cocktail hour, the VMI administration calls on Mars.

She describes herself as quiet and reserved. If her classmates remember her for a single event, she said, it will be for crying when her hair was cut. "I knew they were going to cut it, but what a shock."

Mars hopes for a job in pharmaceutical research. For now, she's off to Korea to visit an uncle and "just live life."