Military School

State Attorney General Thomas W. Corbett Jr. came under fire yesterday for endorsing a legal brief supporting the exclusion of women at the Virginia Military Institute. Whether VMI should remain all-male was argued yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court. The federal government has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia to force gender integration at the 156-year-old state school. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's Law Project joined forces to condemn Corbett's support of a Dec. 15 brief written for the states of Pennsylvania and Wyoming by a Virginia attorney.

Carl Brooks, Josh Powe, Morgan Boyle and James Troilo are making history at Valley Forge Military Academy. The seventh graders are part of a pilot program for day students at the academy. They are the four students in the program, the first of its kind in the academy's 66-year history. "We were one of the few military schools that did not have a day program," said retired Rear Adm. Virgil L. Hill Jr., president of the academy. "The pilot program for seventh graders is being integrated with the boarding school students.

While Valley Forge Military Academy may not legally throw its money or official endorsement behind political candidates, the school can, nevertheless, bestow with great fanfare its highest award on a man who just happens to be running for president of the United States. Escorted by uniformed cadets, with a cavalry regiment and junior military band in the background, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) yesterday received the academy's 23d annual Bob Hope Five-Star Award for Distinguished Service to the United States of America.

Considering the event, Stan Wojtusik had a choice seat - at a table right underneath the formal portrait of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Philadelphia resident was having appetizers before dinner Jan. 15 in Eisenhower Hall at Valley Forge Military Academy and College with companions George Linthicum of Broomall, John Bowen of Silver Spring, Md., and Frank Walsh of Galloway, Ohio. The World War II veterans were attending a weekend "Forge of Freedom" symposium titled "Eisenhower: The Irreplaceable Commander," sponsored by the school and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.

The Army is considering stripping the privileged status of a half-dozen private military colleges by denying their graduates preference for active-duty officer jobs. The Pentagon, military school officials and members of Congress said the Army was considering the change. School officials said it could damage the prestige and traditions of their institutions, and seriously hurt recruiting. The Citadel, in South Carolina, and the Virginia Military Institute would be among the schools affected.

In 1975, 18-year-old Tony McIntyre lost a chance to go to Virginia Military Institute when a family tragedy made affording the school impossible. Five days later, McIntyre was offered a partial football scholarship to Marine Military Academy in Southern Texas. He still couldn't afford to go. Then a businessman gave McIntyre the last $1,000 he needed. Today McIntyre, 40, is a Medford resident, an executive at the Graham Co. in Philadelphia, a married man and a father of two. In part, McIntyre said, he credits his successes to the discipline and training he received during his one year of college-preparatory courses at Marine.

Camellia Fries (left), 14, and Stephanie Fries, 12, go to court in Harrisonburg, Va. Stephanie was convicted Wednesday of helping her sister and boyfriend kill their mother the night before the girls were to start military school. Stephanie's boyfriend and Camellia were earlier convicted of first- degree murder.

The youth had been thrown out of more than a few schools, including a military school, by the time he enrolled, in 1963, in Manor-Hall School of the Devereux Foundation. But this time would be different for the tough, undisciplined boy from a broken home in Northeast Philadelphia. First, the 15-year-old started using the name Michael; he was sick of being called "Sylvester the Cat" Stallone. Then Michael Sylvester Stallone, who was slight in stature, began working out and went out for football, track and other sports.

Two boys who claimed to have been dangled outside dorm windows by other students at Valley Forge Military Academy and Junior College shortly after arriving on campus Sunday have decided to continue their enrollment at the Radnor school. Michael Babore, 17, and Michael Introcaso, 14, left campus with their mothers Tuesday as school officials investigated their claims. School spokeswoman Bonnie Maxwell said both students returned to the academy Wednesday and were on campus yesterday.

That an overweight, overwrought Shannon Faulkner washed out of the Citadel in her first week says little, if anything, about the future of women in the United States military. Faulkner was only one of 24 new cadets at the South Carolina military school who couldn't make it through "Hell Week. " Unlike the 23 male cadets, Faulkner had to carry the weight of more than two years of legal wrangling and the malevolent wishes of many of her classmates in the 100-degree heat. And the Citadel, after all, is not where the top military officers are trained.

A long-simmering feud between a small group of alumni and the administration of Valley Forge Military Academy and College has erupted into a major battle as both sides hurl allegations and threaten legal action. After three years of attempting to take their complaints to the school's trustees, the alumni group, known as the Valley Forge Old Guard, plans to call on the state attorney general to investigate the nonprofit that runs the school. In letters scheduled to be delivered tomorrow to Gov. Rendell, Attorney General Tom Corbett, and other state officials, the group charges that top administrators and the board of trustees are mismanaging private and state funds.

Every school year, at hundreds of high schools across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, students are asked - and sometimes required - to take a vocational aptitude test with a strange-sounding name - the ASVAB, which stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Since Vietnam, the test has been a powerful peacetime recruiting tool for the Pentagon; hundreds of thousands of student scores have routinely been sent to the military each year, typically leading to follow-up calls from recruiters.

Michael Nutter wanted one of his first official appearances as mayor to be at "the place that made me who I am. " Yesterday, St. Joseph's Preparatory School obliged him, the school's first graduate to become Philadelphia mayor. Nutter got a stage in the fieldhouse and a jubilant audience of about 1,200 students, teachers, alumni and parents. He credited numerous people at the school with his success and reiterated his now familiar, yet still emotional, call to service. As Nutter entered the gym, the crowd rose from the rows of folding chairs set up on the floor and the bleachers lining the rear wall.

M. John H. Wansink, 78, of Malvern, a retired company vice president, died of cancer last Thursday at home. A native of the Netherlands, Mr. Wansink graduated from military school and served six years as an officer in the Royal Dutch Army. In 1955, he married Ada van't Hoog. He was discharged that year from the army, and the couple immigrated to the United States. They had only a suitcase and had borrowed money for traveling expenses, said their son, John, but carried with them a sense of adventure.

Valley Forge Military Academy football coach Dennis Orlando knows his players are motivated. Otherwise, why would a player go to practice from 4 to 6 p.m. each day knowing that is the scheduled free time for the cadets? And it's their only free time in a day that begins at 5:45 a.m. and ends with lights out at 10 p.m. "That's their free time, and they choose to be at practice," said the second-year coach. "You know they want to play. They are motivated to be there. " Although the day may be regimented, Orlando noted that there can be advantages for players at a military school.

Sarandon, Sheen join protest against Fort Benning school At least 20 people were arrested yesterday while protesting a U.S.-run military school for Latin Americans, some of whose graduates they claim later committed civil rights abuses. Those arrested on trespass charges were among about a record 16,000 people who demonstrated outside the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning. Said the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest. "How do you teach democracy behind the barrel of a gun?

Among the experiments being tried to improve student performance in city schools is the new Philadelphia Military Academy. With daily reports of U.S. casualties in the Iraq war, it would be understandable if some questioned the decision to open a military school. But the aim here isn't to train future soldiers, it's to provide a rigorous academic setting for children who could benefit from a more disciplined environment. City schools chief Paul Vallas started several military schools in Chicago when he ran that system.

The USA Track and Field Championships finals were held June 22 at Stanford University, and prestigious titles were up for grabs. Many of the best were there, attempting to meet the standards necessary to be considered for spots on the U.S. team that will compete in the 2003 world championships. Penn's Sam Burley was there. The NCAA champion in the 800-meter run, Burley was among the college athletes who competed in a field made up largely of professionals who showed up to improve on their personal bests.

The Philadelphia School District plans to create a military high school in the city and start other military-style programs in all 22 neighborhood high schools that don't already have them. The announcement came yesterday at a meeting of the School Reform Commission at which officials also hired a real estate broker to put the district's headquarters up for sale and announced plans to expand tutoring services for children. Chief executive Paul G. Vallas said military programs could lead to college scholarships and careers in the military.

The South Jersey Baseball Hall of Fame will induct five new members on Saturday at ceremonies in Brooklawn. The inductions will be held at the Brooklawn Post 72 American Legion Hall at 6 p.m. For ticket information, call Ralph Roesler at 609-268-2574 or Charlie Sandora at 856-596-5646. Here is a look at the five Hall of Fame inductees: Greg Burlingame. The 6-foot-5 lefthander was an Inquirer all-South Jersey selection after compiling an 8-4 record and a 0.44 ERA for Kingsway in 1982.