Lexington

Washington and Lee University

Friday, on my journey back home from a month spent at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, I made a stop at Lexington.  Just off Interstate 81, Lexington is in the middle of Virginia's great Shenandoah Valley.  The views of the countryside are captivating.  Lexington is also a college town and home to some rich Civil War history.  One of its famous schools is Washington and Lee University.  One of its most famous presidents was Robert E. Lee, who served in that post from 1865 to 1870.  On the campus is a little chapel, named after General Lee.  In the basement of Lee Chapel, Lee and much of his family are buried.  Just outside the chapel, maybe fifteen feet from where the remains of his master lie in rest, is the burial place of Traveled, General Lee's favorite horse.  I took just a peek inside the chapel.  There was no one else inside save a lady seated up front who was obviously an employee. They offer unscheduled guided tours, but I didn't want to be the only one, so I ducked out and visited the museum on the basement level.  There, the nice lady tried to sell me Douglas Southall Freeman's seven volume biography of George Washington.  The books were in excellent condition and could be had for only five hundred dollars.  Not having that much cash on me at that particular time, I settle for some post cards and walk away having spent only two dollars.

John Neel, Sergeant Major to the
Corps of Cadets, Virginia Military Institute

The real reason I made the stop at Lexington, however, was not to sightsee; it was to visit with an old friend, John Neel.

John and I served in the Army together on a NATO assignment in Izmir, Turkey.  While there, we both deployed with the Izmir headquarters to Pristina, Kosovo where John worked on the J-3 staff and I worked in one of the cells in the J-6 during the KFOR4 rotation.  Just after the completion of our deployment, John retired from active duty to take his dream job as the Sergeant Major to the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington.  He and I have traded emails and have been Facebook friends for a long time, in fact, he was my very first friend, if memory serves, but Friday was the first time I had seen him in person since Izmir, almost nine years ago.  Though pressed for time, John gave me a hasty guided tour of the campus, the highlights of which were these.

Jackson statue at VMI

• The barracks, where the inhabitants are called 'rats.'  The freshmen, or fourth-classmen as  they are called, reside on the fourth, the topmost, level.  Third-classmen reside on the third level, and so on.  A posted overhead as the cadets inter the inner courtyard of the barracks bears an old maxim of Lieutenant General Jackson:  "You may be whatever you resolve to be."
• On what is now a barracks room on the second level is what was once Stonewall Jackson's classroom when he served as a professor at VMI prior to the Civil War.
• The parade ground at the head of which stands a statue of the great Stonewall, himself, fronted by four Civil War-era cannon.  The four pieces are named, respectively, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• The post chapel.
• The museum underneath the chapel.  Here was a replica of the barracks rooms showing how the cadets lived, governed by the "Blue Book" of barracks laws.  There was a room chock full of vintage fire arms of all sorts, including one rifle which may have been used on Lewis' and Clark's expeditions.  Behind glass is preserved Jackson's old horse, Little Sorrel.
• Other significant sights time did not permit us to see up close, John pointed out and described as we viewed them from the parade field.

When it came time to part, we agreed that I must bring the family with me next time and that we must have dinner.  It is a plan I fully intend to execute.

Leaving VMI I visited the aforementioned sights on the Washington and Lee campus.  Then I drove to the far end of main street to the cemetery where Stonewall Jackson is buried.  Leaving the cemetery, I noticed that the buildings of VMI were visible from the top of Main Street.  And leaving main street, I headed back for I-81 and continued by drive to Mount Airy, NC.