Photo Provided

The Citadel ring is a well-known mark of distinction, and it is one of the few adornments left that cannot be purchased - it must be earned through four years of rigorous academic and military training while exhibiting a life lived according to the honor code and The Citadel’s core values.

A look at the school's statement of purpose in 1969 reveals that, "While the college is justly proud of the war records of its sons and will always expect them to respond in national emergencies, its chief purpose is to prepare men for civil pursuits by giving them a sound education reinforced by the best features of military training."

Up front the school implies that it is not a recruit depot like Fort Jackson or Parris Island. By implication it can be gathered that the school does not proclaim that it's in the league with Harvard academically.

Forty-two years later, the 2011 mission statement says the school's "mission is to educate and develop our students to become principled leaders in all walks of life by instilling the core values [Honor, Duty, Respect] of The Citadel in a disciplined and intellectually challenging environment. A unique feature of this environment for the South Carolina Corps of Cadets is the sense of camaraderie produced through teamwork and service to others while following a military lifestyle."

From the outside, The Citadel is an imposing mass of Moorish gray architecture peopled by gray-clad cadets traversing a green lawn called a parade ground. Unlike other college campuses the shrill sound of a bugle amplified over a loud speaker pierces the calm, and cadets stride quickly to meet one of the numerous required formations of the day.

Personal appearance is noted by a cadet squad sergeant whose job it is to maintain standards. A cadet officer takes charge and marches the unit smartly to some non-academic cadet function such as close-order drill, intramural sports, a meal in the mess hall or physical training (P.T.).

How amazing it is that this college can recruit young people who are willing to forego the usual college freedoms, fraternities, and tail-gating at great football games. Instead, The Citadel replaces these adolescent rites of passage with harsh military rigor supplemented by a full load of classes - where oversleeping or cutting is not an option. What makes these people tick - what rationale do they find there that rewards them greater than the pleasure and opportunities they forego at a traditional college or university? What is it that bonds Citadel graduates as closely as brothers? There should be no mystery about the transformation in human behavior that takes place inside those barracks over the 36 months that cadets wear the gray uniform of The South Carolina Corps of Cadets.

On the inside of those walls something is going on that the outside world never sees - something cadets and alums refer to simply as "the system." "The system" is the term they use to describe the unique mix of academic, athletic and military activities and the tremendous amount of information that must be processed and dealt with every single day of one's Citadel career. "The system" has turned boys into men and cadets into useful citizens for more than 160 years.

In the 1990s the institution became coeducational after a much publicized campaign to remain as a state-sponsored, single-gender school. Some things had to change, i.e., locks on doors, separate latrines and modification of some training routines. Today, the emphasis is on personal development in all areas with the inculcation of values such as duty, honor and respect being paramount. Much of the language in The Citadel's 2011 Mission Statement reads like the training directives produced by the Armed Services in the 1970s on race and gender relations. It goes without saying that there is an accentuation upon "expanded cultural awareness" that was not attendant to the school's agenda even during the transformation from a segregated to an integrated establishment. Some of the graduates from the "Old Corps" have questioned what they perceive as a more relaxed corps "system." Be that as it may, the Corps today is strong and it is tough, and furthermore, the academic standards have improved. The rigid cadet-run honor code of not lying, cheating or tolerating these things is still an almost sacred part of the school tradition - just as it was a hundred or more years ago.

Older graduates are not as aware of how the dynamics of society have changed over the decades as are recent alumni. Title 20 of the United States Code was not a concern when many of our grads matriculated. Neither had there been a bruising U.S. Supreme Court case that would break the 150 year all-male tradition. Perhaps the greatest change in society over the past 50 years is that most households require two income earners, something that was unthinkable then. Women are in every type of job slot the country offers. The word "pluralism" is bandied about today to an extent that was undreamed of by the old timers.

In the 1960s the words emblazoned on plaques around the old school read "Duty, Honor, Country." Quotes such as Robert E. Lee's "Duty is the sublimest word in the English language" adorned the inside of the barracks' sally port. Even the winding stairwells ascending the four divisions - floors - of the barracks contained rugged proverbs on how life is to be lived. One saying stenciled on a wall said "Pain is the feeling of weakness leaving the body." It's not hard to acquire a bit of a rugged attitude about life when one is immersed in a 24 / 7 environment that calls for self-discipline and ever increasing levels of stamina. Just the daily grind that "knobs" go through of trying to keep all smudges off of a highly polished brass buckle and walking as if one's shoes were made of glass in order to keep from blemishing the spit shine - is enough to drive part of the class "over the wall" - literally.

One memorable slogan from 40 years ago that was seen a dozen times a day said, "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." As was the case 40 years ago, now many of the upperclassmen who hold cadet rank are already on contract or scholarship to one of the branches of the military, and they infuse things into the regimen that they have picked up in special courses they've participated in at Fort Bragg or Quantico. Something that used to be known as "Jody calls" were actually chants sung in a sing-song rhythm for cadence while running lap after lap around the parade ground. They were quite clever and sometimes ribald, but these chants reinforced in one's mind forever that you were a breed apart from all the others who had chosen the road "most travelled." Somehow you felt that more was expected from you.

Who are the youth who willingly trade away the opportunity of the so-called "Greek life" on the university campus for 8 a.m. S.M.I. - Saturday Morning Inspection, Friday afternoon dress parade, the daily 7:15 a.m. room inspection, and endless drill with an M-16 rifle? Plebes, a polite name for close-cropped cadets who resemble door knobs, have been known to stay up all Friday night shining shoes, folding laundry in a precise manner, cleaning rifles, and putting hospital corners on bedsheets so tightly that a quarter flips as if the bed were a hardwood table. There's quite a lot of wistful thinking about the student bars at Five Points in Columbia and College Avenue in Clemson. Pardon the Citadel grad if he (or she) is over-trained in the trait of self-denial, or if he prides himself in a king-sized abundance of stamina.

What makes daily life at The Citadel so much different from any other college is not the uniform, the required formations or even the daily regimen of academics and military instruction. The difference lies in the aspects of the institution that do not change over time - the fact that every young person entering Lesesne Gate will be tested to his or her limits - academically and physically as well as put through a rigorous military system that forces one to budget time and energy for numerous things - all of which must be done well - and there's accountability at every step of the process. Citadel cadets are taught about accountability from the moment they don the uniform. Citadel graduates expect to be held accountable to the demanding standards and values that are detailed in the school's mission statement. When a graduate falls short on an objective, the paradigm remains in tact, and the rest carry on. The standards and the system that forged so many prepared and determined graduates endures.

However, even The Citadel cannot work miracles, though most who graduate admit that "the system" worked a miracle in them individually. Somewhere in those 36 months between the knob - freshman year - and the ring ceremony there has to be a "buy in" on the part of each of the cadets who attend. That some merely give lip service to the ideals taught there and tough it while hating the place is a recognized, but unspoken aspect of daily life there. Even within the so-called "band of brothers," there is knowledge that some are not holding dear the values learned there even if they do "wear the ring" and tap into the powerful network of contacts,

Speaking of the ring, I don't think that it'd be far-fetched to say that the Citadel ring is one of the most coveted pieces of jewelry that can be had anywhere. It cannot be purchased, though it does cost quite a lot of money. The prominent gold nugget has to be earned through months of upholding standards that slowly but surely become a permanent way of living and thinking. Most Citadel men would not consider leaving the house without a neat, well-groomed appearance and shined shoes. If for no other reason - what would another Citadel grad think?

Though some graduates may cast its values aside, the paradigm is what it is, and it certainly has stood the test of time. Furthermore, the ring is never a paperweight or a trinket to cast aside when things go awry - the ring is a gold seal and a constant reminder of the values all Citadel graduates aspire to live up to.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. See more columns online at www.moultrienews.com. Visit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com).