Lives Guided by Honor

"...reveals the secret ingredients to why strong traditions at VMI have remained for almost two hundred years and the influence society has had on the school to change with the times." -Destiny Jennifer Ringgold, author of Choosing the Harder Right: West Point's 1976 Cheating Scandal

"Simpson has drawn back the veil to reveal this legendary and mysterious Southern institution." -James Gallager, MSc., geologist

Since 1839, the Virginia Military Institute has sought to produce graduates of honor and integrity, citizen-soldiers, and leaders. Graduates have had extraordinary success in landing jobs throughout the decades, becoming military officers or gaining acceptance to graduate schools.

After wondering for decades why her husband chose to attend a military college, Mayling Simpson began a quest for answers. Lives Guided by Honor reveals the secret formula of VMI's success by focusing on VMI's Class of 1968. Simpson examines the history of VMI through an anthropologist's lens, along with the architecture and art of the post (campus) and the Institute's changes through time, to explain how VMI uniquely influences and forms its students. Lives Guided by Honor is for historians, history buffs, alumni of military colleges, educators, and prospective students.