The Citadel Spectator: The Pride of Charleston
Bernstein, Mark F.
"The Citadel Spectator: The Pride of Charleston" by Mark F. Bernstein The Pride of Charleston The century and a quarter since the end of the Civil War has not been kind to Charleston, South Carolina. Nestled in what is...
...There now seems to be a headlong rush into "peace at any price", without proper consideration for Israel's security interests and ultimately for its survival...
...They identify with and promote the interests of the PLO and of the hoped-for Palestinian state...
...The senior cadets were lined up by company in the checkerboard courtyard of one of the three Moorish barracks, attired in their toy soldier uniforms—gray short-tailed jackets decorated with gold buttons and black ribbon, and white trousers, perfectly pressed...
...Because of Rabin's martyrdom, it is now quite possible that another Labor government will be elected and that the "peace process" will be continued, with the fateful results it may entail for Israel...
...Not so the fourth classmen, only about 3o percent of whom go on to active military service, I am told...
...Charleston has lost every war it has ever fought—for a plantation economy, for an aristocratic polity, for low tariffs, for slavery, for state's rights, for Southern independence...
...Receiving the class ring is one of the sacred moments in a Citadel man's career, his pleasure therein heightened by another Citadel tradition—the first thing a senior does upon leaving the chapel is find a sophomore and punch him in the face...
...But in the end one suspects they will find themselves cut off on an island—glorious, inflexible, bitter, and ignored...
...Now that the first shock has passed, it may be time to assess his legacy...
...What, then, of Shannon Faulkner and the women who have already filed suit to follow her...
...It is hard to watch the parade without recalling that this is all play soldiery...
...The Citadel is waging a losing fight, whether it admits it or not, if only because no one who has ever fought this battle against co-education has won it...
...It is on the basis of this minimal majority that Mr...
...Recently, the Citadel has gained unwanted notoriety for its refusal to admit women and the unseemly joy with which cadets celebrated Shannon Faulkner's withdrawal...
...It was expected that the Labor government would be defeated in the coming elections...
...It's just a tradition," added his friend, seemingly accustomed to addressing the uncomprehending...
...All cadets undergo regular neatness inspections, and demerits are assessed for sloppiness and other infractions...
...Upon returning to his barracks, he waits to be admitted by the student officer on duty at the gate, then prances in quickstep, head down, shoulders hunched, and arms drawn up to his chest like a coolie...
...The Citadel does not flinch from admitting that life here is not for everyone...
...You don't have to go along with it," the other sophomore said defensively...
...Peres now arrogates to himself the power of decision to change the borders of and to truncate his country...
...When a fourth classman crosses the street, he marches to the corner —not just to the corner of the street, but to the corner of the paving stone — pauses momentarily, then executes a crisp 9o-degree angle as if pacing off steps in a treasure hunt...
...In order to mold the complete gentleman, each cadet receives a copy of The Art of Good Taste, which, according to the school's catalogue, provides instruction on such matters as "personal appearance and dress, table manners, introductions, callingcards, social correspondence, overnight visits, and punctuality...
...Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli patriot and military hero...
...The day a Citadel cadet undoes his brass buttons he is a civilian —and of course he was a civilian all along...
...A clear mandate, a super-majority in parliament or in a plebiscite should be required to make such life-and-death decisions...
...Sending someone off to military school is an old threat of last resort, and though some young men may need the discipline, I suspect that those who do are not the ones the Citadel hopes to recruit...
...He was well aware of the strategic importance of the "West Bank...
...One of only two state-sponsored military colleges still in operation (the other is the Virginia Military Institute), the Citadel is South Carolina's military college, not the nation's...
...What it does produce is irrelevance...
...This is called "branding," because the signet ring, when smacked hard into a sophomore's forehead, leaves an imprint...
...For most, the college years are a time for confronting the uncertainties of life, not suppressing them...
...It was MARK F. BERNSTEIN iS a writer and lawyer in Philadelphia...
...Nowhere is this mixture better seen than at The Citadel or, as it is formally known, The Military College of South Carolina...
...Nestled in what is known as the state's Low Country, the city, like the region, has seen its economic preeminence twice surpassed: first by the western textile towns and later by the coastal golf resorts of Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head...
...Unfortunately, he is pursuing a much more heedless approach to the "peace process...
...that the Golan will be handed over to Syria, and that Jerusalem, will be divided...
...A few sported medals on their chests or chevrons on their sleeves...
...It does not produce bad men or bad citizens...
...After having suffered more Arab terror casualties since the handshake than in any comparable period, the Israeli public had become disenchanted with the "peace process...
...In retaliation, Union troops closed the school until the end of Reconstruction...
...For 30o years Charleston has pulled against the tides of national life: it was coastal when the country was beginning to move west, agricultural as the nation became industrialized, and aristocratic when America was proving its democratic bona fides...
...The Arabs have recognized that, at least at present, that cannot be done by military means...
...One of them snorted derisively...
...The Citadel prides itself on educating the "whole man," something almost everyone else manages to do in a civilian atmosphere...
...What are the facts...
...My own recent visit to the school happened to coincide with the presentation of class rings...
...But, his foreign minister, Shimon Peres,was in secret negotiations with the PLO culminating in that historical hand- " One can only hope that Israelis, in homage to the shake in Wash- slain premie4 will take a very hard look at the ington, D.C...
...Princeton and the University of Virginia have honor codes, too, without sword-carrying students at the gate...
...His assassination was an almost intolerable blow to his country, to Jews in Israel and in the United States, and to people all over the world...
...One could hear the whoops of the eager seniors waiting to march to chapel as "The Ride of the Valkyries" blasted from the public address system...
...THE CITADEL SPECTATOR by Mark F. Bernstein The Pride of Charleston The century and a quarter since the end of the Civil War has not been kind to Charleston, South Carolina...
...Undergraduates fired the first shots of the Civil War and later the last, holding out in the western mountains almost a month after Appomattox...
...Peres will yield the Golan to Syria, and with the "West Bank" in hostile Arab hands, Israel will be mortally weakened and virtually indefensible...
...Shimon Peres is now prime minister...
...Life-and-death decisions without a mandate: The Knesset (parliamentary) majority of the Labor Party is paper-thin: 61/59...
...and that Jerusalem would forever remain Israel's undivided capital...
...to draw too much from this ceremony, at bottom it is just a silly college ritual—not much different from lots of silly fraternity rituals elsewhere, held dear in memory and utterly harmless...
...flawed policies of Shimon Peres and at the "peace Prime Minis- process" and its almost inevitable consequences, ter Rabin pro- beforeit's late...
...Your tax-deductible e contribution allows us to publish these important messages...
...He did also promise that he would never negotiate with the PLO...
...The Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin Which direction for Israel in the wake of his assassination...
...The Citadel is Charleston's pride, and in many ways its most representative institution...
...Forever treading on the thin edge of irrelevance has stirred a mixture of the picturesque and the bitter here, a mix that charms the tourists but covers something far less pleasant for the natives...
...That's why we're in here...
...Though it is tempting Tradition takes on real meaning when it's doomed...
...that he would never yield the Golan Heights...
...Especially since the Labor party elevated the PLO terror organization to respectability, Israeli Arabs, mostly disaffected in any case—do not identify with and do not promote the interests of Israel, the Jewish state...
...58 May 1996 • The American Spectator You deserve a factual look at...
...There is now little question that full control over the "West Bank" will be transferred to the PLO, to Arafat and to his 30,000 soldiers (disguised as policemen), and that a Palestinian state will come into existence in the "West Bank" and in Gaza...
...ceeded with the The deluded fool who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin has accomplished the exact opposite of what he had intended...
...Beloved but ignored, the city lives on its past, cozy in an insularity best expressed in the aphorism taught to South Carolina school children: that Charleston is where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean Insularity and intransigence define the city...
...Box 590359 ^ San Francisco,CA 94159 FLAME is a 501(c)(3) educational institution...
...chartered to train leaders for a militia whose first duty was to defend the state...
...Leaving aside for a moment the issue of excluding women from a state-supported institution (which, I recognize, is the issue), there is nothing inherently wrong with organizing an institution around such ceremony...
...By luck, the pair happened to be sophomores, dressed in white uniforms with pale blue sashes...
...Against what...
...It is clear that, before too long, the Israeli Arabs, who are concentrated in Galilee, will demand severance from Israel and "Anschluss" to the new state of Palestine, thus further carving up Israel and contributing to its strategic disadvantage...
...Were they looking forward to being branded...
...The uniformed freshmen, known as fourth classmen, walk at attention...
...If, as seems now to be foreordained, Mr...
...Here as nowhere else, the cavalier ideal lives on in rigid discipline and courtly ritual...
...Cadets may repulse the siege for a long time, as they held off the Union troops...
...The policies of the current Israeli government seem to have made that goal more attainable...
...that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be created...
...Officers wore maroon sashes around their waists...
...Of the 61 votes in favor of the government, five belong to Arab parties...
...At West Point or Annapolis, the uniforms and regimentation serve a purpose, building a sense of camaraderie necessary for people being trained to kill...
...Background of the "peace process": Rabin's party was elected on the strength of its leader's promise to end the intifada...
...Those cadets and midshipmen have military commitments after graduation, too, and so make some use of their training...
...Blacks, originally—the school was founded after a series of slave uprisings in the 1820's...
...One can only hope that Israelis, in homage to the slain premier, will take a very hard look at the flawed policies of Shimon Peres and at the "peace process" and its almost inevitable consequences, before it's too late...
...implementation of this "peace process...
...ore s too te...
...I stopped two underclassmen in the bookstore, hoping to get a better explanation of this delightfully appalling ritual...
...that he would not yield sovereignty over the Israeli heartland of Judea/Samaria (the"West Bank...
...They're going to be looking for you guys, I guess," I ventured...
...Whatever the pressures, he would never have given up military control over that area nor of the Golan Heights...
...This ad has been published and paid for by FLAME Facts and Logic about the Mi±Ie East P.O...
...The strategy, therefore, is the destruction of Israel in stages—first, by creating a Palestinian state in any territory that can be taken over through Israeli acquiescence, and then to foment an allout assault against the critically vulnerable Jewish state...
...The declared aim of the PLO, clearly stated in its covenant and never rescinded, is the destruction of Israel...
...You can fight back...
Vol. 29 • May 1996 • No. 5
