By MATT CHITTUM
ROANOKE TIMES

Virginia Military Institute "rat" Jen Jolin wrote a column for the student newspaper called "VWIL - Need I Say More?"

But these days, she's probably wishing she'd said a little bit less. Jolin, who called the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership "quite possibly the most useless investment ever," has caught no end of grief for her attack on the students in the Mary Baldwin College program she called "cadettes."

"She didn't realize half the VWIL girls date VMI guys," pointed out Col. Michael Bissell, assistant to the VMI superintendent and commandant of the VWIL program. At the very least, Jolin should have considered that ranking VWIL cadet Trimble Bailey is dating the president of VMI's Rat Disciplinary Committee, which has the power to make Jolin sweat almost at will. Jolin attacked the program, which was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court as a separate but equal alternative to VMI in the hopes that it would allow VMI to stay all-male, for being "as military as the Girl Scouts."

She also complained of the VWIL women's "shiny-happy" boots and the way they fixed each other's hair when a video camera came around to the ROTC courses Jolin was in with them.

The VWIL women responded with a letter in The Cadet, the VMI paper, the following week, which politely pointed out that Jolin didn't know what she was talking about.

"VWIL is not a strictly 'military' program," the letter said, and cannot compare to VMI in that respect, because "it was created as an alternative to VMI, not a replica of VMI."

A letter from VMI senior Jason Lamb, however, was not so polite.

"Through a rigorous lifestyle VMI can produce many things," wrote Lamb, who dates a VWIL cadet, "however, this rat's article shows me that maybe VMI cannot produce a lady, something VWIL can."