Saturday, September 13, 1997 'Mail Call' takes on a new meaning By MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES A bad punster might call it "fe-mail." Whatever you call it, there has been lots of it arriving at the office of Mike Strickler, VMI public information director. Every day, a few more letters and postcards land on Strickler's desk addressed to "Women Cadets at VMI" or "VMI Women," in care of Strickler. The post cards have had comments like "hang in there" and "go get 'em." "I just take them over to the barracks and drop them off in the women's rooms," Strickler said. He spreads them around so everybody gets something to read. He figures about 50 letters have come to date, a good many from the Long Island area and several from Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park, N.Y. Strickler attributes that concentration to a story in the Long Island paper Newsday about Brooke Green, the first of the female "rats" to get her head shaved this year. If any of the letters have been hate mail, Strickler hasn't heard about it. "I'm assuming they're all encouraging," he said. Equal opportunity punishment Female VMI "rat" Angelica Garza made headlines this week for slugging the sergeant of the barracks guard and getting suspended, but she wasn't the first cadet out the door this year for such an offense. A third-classman, or sophomore, who caught a male rat in the middle of a prank - the rat was trying to throw the sophomore's mattress out of his room - "whacked him a couple of times" with a broom handle, Strickler said. The rat was not injured, and the sophomore received the same two-semester suspension Garza received. How about skirts for transsexual 'rats'? Would a male-to-female transsexual Virginia Military Institute cadet be issued a skirt? Sound like a stupid question? The VMI public relations department thought so. The hypothetical query from a law professor and legal writer earned a share of the top spot on a list of the top 10 stupid questions asked by the media at the institute in the last few weeks. Most revealed, if not actual stupidity, certainly a considerable lack of thought. Like No. 8: "What has been the past reaction to women getting their hair cut?" Or No. 6, allegedly asked by a reporter from MTV during a discussion of VMI's new anti-fraternization rules: "What was your cadet dating policy in past years?" No. 3 is a little more subtle: "So, you can date someone above you in the chain of command, but not below you?" Think about it. Chuck Steenburgh, assistant director of public information, began scribbling down the questions as he heard them. The list wound up posted in the public relations office. It was never intended for anything but in-house amusement, Strickler said. And in these most hectic days at VMI, any amusement is welcome. Though it was common knowledge who asked some of the questions - like the hapless photographer who asked to be allowed into the off-limits barbershop to snap some photos for "Sophisticated Hairstylist" magazine - none of them was attributed on the list. And who would want to claim inquiries in search of such speculation as this one, asked of VMI Superintendent Josiah Bunting III by a television reporter from a Roanoke station: "I understand you have a son who will matriculate Monday. If he were your daughter, what would you tell him?" Or this long-winded one from an NBC News reporter, which tied for first place on the list: "General Bunting, did you ever think as a cadet 37 years ago that you would one day be a superintendent of VMI for the first class of women cadets, a class that would include a woman from the former Soviet Union?" Bunting's answer: "No."