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One of the characters in my next novel attended Virginia Military Institute during the 1950s. I chose VMI specifically because all of their old yearbooks are available online, at the Internet Archive. The 1950s were a strange time, especially, I guess, at a southern military school with a tradition of conservatism. In the course of reading through these yearbooks, I can’t help but see all kinds of weird, and, yes, frightening, little (and sometimes big!) references to homosexuality. \
Here’s a subtle one, the description of one of the graduating cadets under his formal picture, in the 1957 yearbook:
Although not a “ladies’ man” by VMI standards, Bill was never one to turn down a trip to Hollins or Randolph-Macon. Not one to be easily shaken from what he believes is right, Bill has nevertheless endeared himself to cadets in all four classes by his gentle, easy-going manner, no matter how trying the circumstances may be.
If you’re not gay, or if you didn’t grow up in a place where homosexuality was a taboo subject, only permissible on the edges of the conversation, you are probably shaking your head in confusion. But I can’t help but think there’s something queer about Bill, and that that’s what the author of this description was trying to tell us. How, precisely, did his “gentle, easy-going manner” endear him to all the cadets, and why describe his circumstances as “trying?”
“You’re reading too much into it, Manley.” I can hear you guys now.
So try this on for size. It’s also from the 1957 VMI yearbook:
Even more interesting is how closely this image, from 55 years ago, mirrors this one, from 7 years ago, also from the Virginia Military Institute (though they didn’t put this one in their yearbook):
There is certainly lots of homoerotic joking around that goes in in hyper-masculine places like military schools. There’s probably a lot gay activity, too, despite the sanctions that apply to those who get caught. In William Mancherster’s Goodbye Darkness, he tells of a Marine sergeant who, when drunk, would talk about his plans to write a book after retirement to be called: Cocks I have Sucked, which was taken as a great bit of macho swagger, by his enlisted trainees. Then, a year or more later ,the daily regimental news announcement informs the Corps that sergeant had been caught and sentenced to many years hard labor for it. One thing to note is that in the play and film Brother Rat, a routine bit of hazing or VMI Fourth Classmen was to have them bend over to be hit with a broom by the upper Classmen. This could be an explanation for the bull’s eve on their asses as a recurring image in the yearbooks. In my years at a military high school, the closest thing to this that I recall was calling those who were helpful to teachers “browns” a military reference to ass-kissing that evidently became more widespread after the wars. I also remember first coming across the terms “dropping the soap” in the military novel Once a Horseman. I’d also highly recommend Pat Conroy’s bovel about his years at The Citadel, The Lords of Discipline, not for any particular homoerotic content that I remember, but for the whole picture it paints of cadet life.
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