Thursday, August 21, 1997 Ms. Rat, meet the Cadre Equal treatment -- rough -- for men and women alike By MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES There were 456 VMI rats Wednesday, but all eyes were on only 30 of them. If only the apprehensive rats, lined up neatly in the courtyard of the Virginia Military Institute's barracks, could have heard Chris Floom's advice. "Don't make eye contact with the cadre," the senior said, referring to the intimidating training corps at VMI. That's how the members of the cadre pick their first prey. "Rats, look at the men before you," Regimental Executive Officer Mike Lorence of Carlisle, Pa., bellowed from the balcony above the 426 male and 30 female rats. "They have mastered the system you are about to enter. From these men you will learn everything you need to know to survive." The eyes of the press pool and a few hundred spectating cadets were all on VMI's first female rats as Lorence spoke. The women were stoic. Yulia Beltikova, Angelia Pickett and Angelica Garza and the others looked straight ahead. "You will not fail them," Lorence continued, "and you have no choice." At times like these, those who have been through the ratline can tell you, rats begin to think of home, parents, friends. But the point of the ratline is to tear all that away. It rips away the yoke of poverty and prejudice. It kicks away the crutches of wealth and status, leaving only the bare character of the individual, exposed and unembellished. What will allow these first women to survive the ratline is not in Krasnodar, Russia, or Glasgow, Ky., or Fort Belvoir, Va., anyway. If it is not within them, it is not anywhere. Seconds later, their odyssey began. "Rats, meet your. .. cadre," Lorence roared, launching the 81 men of the cadre into the cringing ranks of the rats, and beginning the first coed ratline in the 158-year history of VMI. If the men of the cadre had any reservations about handling women in the ratline, they didn't show on Wednesday. Men and women were equally harassed. "I would say exactly equal," said Superintendent Josiah Bunting III. "I watched it very carefully. Two of the rats I saw getting it most enthusiastically were women." Beltikova found herself immediately confronted with a screaming upperclassman. A minute later, one was in Garza's face. The cadre asks simple questions, like "What's your name?" and "Where are you from?" but there are no right answers according to Floom. Still, Garza was belting out responses. "Awesome," said Senior Class President Kevin Trujillo, who is Garza's dyke, or cadet big brother. "Motivation starts right here. The cadre knows if you're not sounding off, you're not motivated." But the rats try to lose themselves in the group. Anonymity equals safety in the ratline. "All of your thoughts are just the immediate things, like what's that guy behind me doing, I hope he doesn't notice me,' " said cadet Eric Smith of Waynesboro. Still, it happens. Kim Herbert of Herndon was repeatedly "flamed" by several members of the cadre, apparently because she hung some of her clothes out of her barracks window to dry. But the women held up well. All survived Wednesday's barrage, compared with four of their male counterparts, who dropped out before the ratline even began. "With all the pressure and attention," media relations cadet Tom Warburton of Pulaski said, "they may have prepared themselves better than the men." There were moments of struggle. Amanda Harris' arms seemed to quiver on the last of 10 push-ups she was dropped for, but she found the strength to finish. Jen Jolin, a rat from Monterey in Highland County, had back surgery this summer and was supposed to be restricted from most of the exercises for the first three weeks of the ratline. But according to Public Information Director Mike Strickler, Jolin insisted on participating, even after VMI physician David Copeland told her to slow down. Few elements of the ratline were changed to accommodate women. Rats no longer have to "pack it in," or cram themselves together until they are almost on top of one another. Also gone is another formation in which the rats lined up single file, each one pressed hard against the rat in front of him. One tradition that returned to the ratline after a year's hiatus was the issue of the rat bibles - VMI's self-described "source of all wisdom" - by the hulking Rat Disciplinary Committee. Last year, the rats just picked the bibles up off a table. Wednesday, they had to endure a good bit of windburn on their ears generated by the screaming Rat Disciplinary Committee. The rest of the ratline, though, was just the same, according to some of the leading authorities - those who have been through it. "The corps was particularly unruly," said John Jenkins, a 1997 graduate who sneaked into the locked-down barracks in a borrowed cadet uniform so he could watch the rats meet their cadre. The other cadets looking on with him jeered the rats more than usual, he said. John Brown, class of '84, took a week off from his Georgia-based marketing distribution company to witness his alma mater's maiden voyage into coeducation. "We in our hearts didn't think VMI would ever come this," he said. "We thought it would go private, we thought we'd buy this crazy place." He got to see the new rat mass meet its cadre from up close, and now believes the time is right for coeducation at VMI. "I came into the barracks today and I was able to stand on the stoop, and it's no different, no different at all." He saw the cadre yelling in the faces of the female rats, and found it "very comforting."