Wounded Cadet Meets Graduation Requirements

bruno

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http://www.vmi.edu/show.aspx?tid=4294970021&id=4294971571
Semper Fi Sgt Jones! You epitomize the VMI Ideal: ...."Fair specimens of citizen soldiers" Col. JTL Preston would be proud of you as well as of the other close to 100 Cadets who have been mobilized and deployed while cadets over the past 8 years. Rah Virginia Mil!

LEXINGTON, Va., Aug. 26, 2010 – A Virginia Military Institute cadet wounded last month by an improvised explosive device while on active duty with the Marine Corps in Afghanistan is a cadet no more....
....Delivering the good news were two members of the VMI staff, Lt. Col. Gary Bissell, assistant chief of staff, and Col. James Park, chaplain to the Corps of Cadets, who visited Jones in his hospital room.
“They brought me a VMI flag, a VMI blanket, [and] all the information saying I had completed my degree requirements,” said Jones in a telephone interview from his room. “That was a huge surprise. I didn’t expect that at all.” ....

...His deployment in January was the second time he had been called to serve in a war zone. His unit had deployed to Iraq in September 2007, which should have been the start of his 1st Class – or senior – year at VMI.

“If I walk in May [graduation ceremonies], I’ll walk with my rats’ class,” said Jones. First Class cadets at VMI serve as mentors to members of the 4th Class, the new cadets, or rats. After he returned from his first active duty assignment, Jones met members of the class who had been rats during what would have been his 1st Class year, but he never had the opportunity to serve as a mentor, or dyke, in VMI parlance....
...Now focused on an extended recovery, Jones looks back on the deployments that took him away from VMI with equanimity.
 
Wounded Cadet....

Just a great example for our country and the people who defend freedom.

RGK
 
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