VMI Tour- Emily Roche

After an insightful trip to VMI this past morning, I realized the mass amount of history that was right outside my doorstep.  Though I'd known of the school's rich military background and connections to American and national wars, I was not aware that there was such a great amount of this history memorialized within the campus.  Though there were many among many statues and memorials commemorating such wars and their generals, such as Stonewall Jackson and Marshall, it was not the war memorials that struck me as most interesting,  The memorial I found most interesting on campus was the Jonathan Daniels memorial that was tucked away in the corner of a courtyard.  I found this memorial extremely interesting because, not only was it an amazing act of bravery and heroism, but it was one of the least flashy memorials on campus.  The memorial was not only tucked behind the barracks, but it was facing away from where one would enter the courtyard, making it rather hard to find, especially if one was a tourist just passing by.  Personally, I thought this memorial deserved a bigger area to commemorate the civil rights activist.  However, I was amazed at the fact that all VMI students, and this was proven, were able retell a little bit of Daniels' story when asked about him, showing the man did not die for nothing, and that he has not gone unnoticed.  But still, I find it very interesting and rather peculiar that this man's memorial was placed in such an isolated area, and it makes me wonder who was in charge of this memorial, and whether they did not feel this event was worth the amount of commemoration as a general or a war hero.  Like I said, had it been up to me, I would have placed this memorial closer to civilian pathways, or more front and center on the campus.