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Heather Rousseau

The former Virginia Military Institute cadet was scrolling Facebook when he saw a trio of photos that made him seethe.

The images showed a graduating VMI student being sworn in as a Marine officer on a December day in 2019 at the school’s historic Memorial Hall.

The former cadet knew the freshly commissioned Marine second lieutenant in a way he’d never forget. Just across the street from Memorial Hall, that same student had helped waterboard him and another VMI freshman inside the barracks as part of an unauthorized initiation ritual, according to two lawsuits, a VMI police report and the transcript of a VMI disciplinary hearing.

One VMI official testified that the January 2018 incident, though brief, was one of the worst episodes of abuse against a freshman he could remember at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college, where hazing is prohibited by state law and <a href="https://www.vmi.edu/media/content-assets/documents/general-orders/GO52.pdf" target=_blank>VMI policy</a>.

The room had been darkened, the feet of the two freshmen were bound with duct tape, and an Islamic call to prayer was played on a speaker to invoke <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/05/25/AR2005033113076.html" target=_blank>the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal</a>, the police report and the VMI disciplinary hearing transcript show.

Waterboarding is designed to simulate the feeling of being drowned and became the subject of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/03/20/the-harsh-interrogations-of-al-qaeda-detainees-was-it-torture-and-did-it-help-find-bin-laden/" target=_blank>heated debate</a> when the CIA used it to interrogate al-Qaeda detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Why, the former cadet wondered, did VMI suspend his tormentor and two other upperclassmen instead of expelling them, allowing them to return to school and graduate? And why was the military commissioning any of them as officers, including two cadets who were in the room and did nothing to stop it?

The Facebook photos made the former cadet so irate that he decided to sue.

He filed a federal lawsuit under the name “John Doe” against the college, its senior administrators and five of the cadets in the room. When his case was dismissed in 2020, he immediately filed another suit against the five students in state court, seeking nearly $1 million in damages and legal fees.

Matt McClain

“VMI was the life I was trying to build, and those students took it away from me,” he said. “I was shocked that the upperclassmen in that room that night were allowed to commission. Who would let them in? This was a war crime — but for fun.”

But Will Woodrow, the defense attorney for one of the suspended students, said the term waterboarding unfairly exaggerates what happened.

“Their heads weren’t held in place, and water wasn’t constantly being poured down their mouths, so they felt like they were drowning,” Woodrow said. “This was a few ounces of water. They could have sat up and said, ‘Stop.’ Waterboarding is a very loaded word. We learned about it because of what the CIA did. But that’s not what these cadets were doing.”

VMI officials were not in doubt about what happened.

“It was pretty clear to me,” Bill Wanovich, the school’s then-commandant, testified at a disciplinary hearing, “that both of [the freshmen] had been waterboarded at least once.”

Parker Michels-Boyce

For more than a year, the hazing lawsuits have been overshadowed by the state-ordered investigation into <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/at-vmi-black-cadets-endure-lynching-threats-klan-memories-and-confederacy-veneration/2020/10/17/3bf53cec-0671-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html" target="_blank">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/07/12/vmi-women-sex-assault-misogyny/" target="_blank">sexism</a> at VMI.

The 182-year-old college, which received $21.6 million in state funding for the 2021-2022 academic year, educates about 1,650 students on its Lexington campus.

At VMI, Black cadets endure lynching threats, Klan memories and Confederacy veneration

But with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vmi-report-investigation-racism/2021/06/01/380c08c4-c2cb-11eb-93f5-ee9558eecf4b_story.html" target=_blank>independent investigation</a> complete and a series of reforms underway, the lawsuit against the five VMI graduates in Roanoke County Circuit Court highlights another controversial component of the college’s culture: its century-plus-old “rat line.”

At VMI, new students, known as “rats,” are subjected to a roughly six-month initiation process, enduring grueling boot-camp-style workouts and verbal abuse from upperclassmen.

NANCY ANDREWS

But VMI warns its cadets, coaches and teachers that the school does not tolerate hazing, which can pose a threat to student safety. “Any individual or organization found to be in violation of this policy shall be subject to disciplinary action, which may include a sanction up to and including dismissal for cadets and termination of employment for faculty, administrators, coaches, and staff,” VMI’s <a href="https://www.vmi.edu/media/content-assets/documents/general-orders/GO52.pdf" target=_blank>policy states</a>.

The school routinely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/12/21/vmi-lynching-racism-expulsion/" target="_blank">expels students</a> who violate its one-strike-and-you’re-out honor code, barring cadets from lying, cheating, stealing or tolerating those who do.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a VMI spokesman declined to explain why the students involved in the waterboarding incident were not expelled, saying federal law prohibits the school from discussing specific cadet disciplinary cases.

“Hazing has been and continues to be a dismissible offense and a crime,” the college said. “Reports of incidents that could constitute hazing are always reported to the Commonwealth’s Attorney and investigated by law enforcement. If a cadet is found guilty by a court of law, they will be permanently dismissed from the Institute. … If the matter does not rise to a criminal charge but is considered conduct unbecoming of a cadet, the matter will be adjudicated by the commandant and/or the superintendent, up to, and including, expulsion from VMI.”

Derision, misogyny, sexual assault: VMI women face attacks on campus and online

Steve Helber

The waterboarding incident occurred during a “rat mission,” an unsanctioned task, ranging from the silly to the extreme, that freshmen complete at an upperclassman’s order.

The Post is identifying the former cadet who filed the lawsuits by his middle name, Robert, because his anonymity as a plaintiff has so far not been denied in court.

The Post is also not identifying the defendants because, though the police investigated the incident, they were not charged with crimes, and Robert, now 23, did not press charges himself. The Post is, however, naming the other freshman who was targeted, Jacob Salomonsky.

Shortly before he graduated in 2021, Salomonsky filed a motion in Robert’s lawsuit seeking a court order for Robert to stop calling him “John Doe 2” and asserting that he does not need anonymity. Salomonsky — who did not respond to interview requests from The Post — also wanted Robert to remove any claims suggesting the defendants committed legal wrongdoing against him.

He said “the events of that evening consisted of good-natured roughhousing and some silly charades delivered with a playful spirit.” His and Robert’s identities are well known in the VMI community, he said, so being cast as a victim harmed his “personal and professional” interests and associated him with “an unfounded attack on what will be my alma mater — VMI.”

For years, universities and military academies — from <a href="https://gazette.com/news/hazing-charges-against-three-air-force-academy-swimmers-dismissed/article_353cb4d4-4066-11e9-9c17-abd08ddded8c.html" target="_blank">the Air Force Academy in Colorado</a> to <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/archives/citadel-settles-suit-from-cadet-who-says-he-was-bound-gagged-struck-in-groin/article_8b5fbb32-dace-5866-9070-6b63268a6835.html" target="_blank">The Citadel in South Carolina</a> — have grappled with hazing incidents that have resulted in serious injuries or even death. In September, multiple students at Virginia Commonwealth University were charged with hazing after a freshman died of alcohol poisoning at a fraternity party.

VMI’s history of hazing goes back decades. Its most distinguished alumnus, Gen. George Marshall — whose statue stands outside the barracks — is perhaps the college’s most renowned hazing victim. The future statesman, who graduated from VMI in 1901, <a href="https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2014/04/MarshallatVMI.pdf" target=_blank>was forced as a rat</a> to squat over an upturned bayonet, but slipped and tore his buttock, “narrowly missing serious injury,” according to the George C. Marshall Foundation.

Zachary Wajsgras

A century later, in 1997, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/02/08/parents-demand-vmi-treat-beatings-as-crime/2c4f229e-081a-48b6-b277-8b8020a352d1/" target=_blank>six VMI freshmen were beaten</a> with a belt — and once with a coat hanger — on their legs and buttocks by seniors about three times a week for one month. More recently, in 2005, photos of at least one VMI cadet bound in duct tape leaked to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050313010615/http://richmond.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9894/index.php" target=_blank>a Richmond online news site</a> in a ritual called <a href="https://digitalcollections.vmi.edu/digital/collection/p15821coll8/id/23130/rec/259" target=_blank>“balling up.”</a>

In his now-dismissed federal lawsuit, Robert listed multiple hazing incidents against freshmen that transpired during his freshman year or shortly before he arrived in August 2017: a cadet tied to a chair and beaten with socks full of bars of soap; a student ordered to defecate in an another cadet’s container of protein supplement; cadets directed to work out in an upperclassman’s barracks room while chewing tobacco or with a mouth full of water.

Virginia’s attorney general, which represented VMI and its administrators in the federal lawsuit, said in court documents those anecdotes “amount to rumors” because Robert did not say when or where they may have occurred or if the college knew about them.

But one cadet testified during a disciplinary hearing related to the waterboarding case that his upper-class mentor had burned his chest with a cigar.

In interviews with The Post, several current and former VMI students said the rat line can create the conditions that lead to hazing or other forms of mistreatment.

In 2018, seven months after the waterboarding incident, a Black freshman named Rafael Jenkins was threatened with a lynching by a White sophomore during what’s known as Hell Week. The sophomore was suspended and left VMI.

A Black VMI cadet was threatened with a lynching, then with expulsion

According to the state-ordered investigation into VMI, five of 12 Black cadets surveyed found the rat line promotes “racial intolerance and/or discrimination” either “a little” or “a lot.”

But the investigation did not recommend any changes to the rat line or most of VMI’s other traditions, beyond urging the school to “examine how it can create an environment that does not disadvantage or impose disparate effects on minorities.” The two freshmen in the waterboarding case are White.

In its Blue Book of cadet regulations, VMI prohibits treating rats cruelly, including striking them “with or without an implement,” requiring them to binge eat or drink, or targeting them with “unduly harsh” or “abusive” language. Its <a href="https://www.vmi.edu/media/content-assets/documents/corps-life/2021-Cadet-Handbook-WEB.pdf" target=_blank>cadet handbook</a> issues another edict: “Rats cannot choose to be hazed.” Both manuals outline how hazing is illegal in Virginia.

VMI said in its statement to The Post that it “has protocols in place to quickly identify and resolve any alleged act of hazing. Cadets who are in leadership positions are given clear rules of engagement and provided with training on what constitutes hazing.” Freshmen are also educated “on what is appropriate and not appropriate conduct within the confines of the rat line.”

John McDonnell

At a school where students and alumni often refer to one another as “brother rats,” VMI has always taken pride in <a href="https://www.vmi.edu/media/content-assets/documents/administration/210526RatLineBrief_Final.pdf" target=_blank>the rat line’s adversity</a>.

Though VMI doesn’t require any of its students to commission in the military, every freshman must endure the rat line. The college bills it as the “great equalizer” because “all rats equally have to earn the respect” of the student body through their “effort, grit, and determination” regardless of their backgrounds.

Older, handpicked cadets — known as cadre members — frequently shout commands at rats in the barracks, telling them to drop and do push-ups if their rooms are messy, if their uniforms aren’t worn properly, or if they laugh or act disrespectfully. The freshmen are often ordered to “strain” — tuck their chins into their chest and bend their backs backward, sometimes so severely that their bodies can shake.

“Bracing,” a similar kind of stance, is still a requirement at VMI’s rival, The Citadel, but the Naval Academy and West Point have phased out those painful postures, according to the schools’ spokespeople.

Cadets told The Post that some harsh aspects of VMI’s rat line may not generate headlines like beatings or waterboarding. But they question the purpose of straining or being forced to stand on their toes in their stiff military shoes during formations.

Straining “hurts your back,” said one freshman, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal. “They’ll just say, ‘Push your forehead back’ over and over. You bend so far back, and they make you hold it. It’s extremely painful.”

What New 'Rats' Go Through In Hell Week At Virginia Military Institute | Boot Camp

In August, VMI allowed Business Insider to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQFQxwPhtHE" target=_blank>film Hell Week</a>, the first days rats spend on campus. The video, published in November, shows freshmen being screamed at, forced to strain or do workouts while chanting the school’s honor code.

But VMI police records show only three investigations into hazing in the past five years, including the waterboarding case. And according to the college’s statistics, the number of incidents in which cadre members failed to meet VMI’s “standards of conduct” during Hell Week has been dropping, from 148 in 2019 to 84 in 2020 to 75 in 2021.

The college’s 2020 Hell Week report recounts one upper-class student warning a rat, “I’ll make this so bad for you that … you won’t want to wake up in the morning” and threatening to kick another rat down the stairs. Other older cadets lunged at rats, calling them “retard” or “pussy” and spewing expletives, according to the report.

Logan Cyrus

A classification of Hell Week incidents includes a “Rat Emotional Breakdowns” category. In one report, there were 18 recorded in 2019, five in 2020 and zero in 2021.

In 2020, one 18-year-old endured relentless verbal abuse from cadre members, the Hell Week report from that year shows. In an interview with The Post, he said the rat line left him so alienated and depressed that he tried to hang himself twice in one night with his VMI-issued belt in a barracks shower. After he told his roommates about his suicide attempts, he was escorted to the campus hospital and soon left VMI.

The former cadet, who wanted to join the Navy as a nuclear engineer, said the rat line operates under “the guise of tradition to facilitate the perpetual cycle of revenge and abuse.”

Asked about the suicide attempt, VMI said it has “trained counselors and medical professionals on staff 24-hours per day to help any cadet struggling with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health issues.”

This year, a rat had to seek medical treatment for panic attacks and suicidal thoughts before withdrawing from the school, said one VMI student, who knew the cadet.

“The rat was planning to commission, but found the rat line — and all the yelling — overwhelming and all too much,” said the cadet, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

For a long time, Robert downplayed his experience being waterboarded. After all, it had lasted just seconds.

“I thought it was normal,” he said. “This was just part of the rat line.”

It was around 1 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2018, when Robert entered an upperclassmen’s barracks room to help another freshman, Jacob Salomonsky, with a rat mission. The night’s objective: retrieve Salomonsky’s mattress, which had been stolen at the direction of an upperclassman.

It was “Resurrection Week.” The freshman class was days away from <a href="https://libguides.vmi.edu/blog/A-History-of-Breakout" target=_blank>“Breakout,”</a> a day-long event filled with intense physical workouts and <a href="https://vmi.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15821coll7/id/5906/" target=_blank>a march carrying logs</a>.

Nancy Andrews

Once they broke out, they would no longer be rats. They’d finally earn their status as “fourth-class” cadets.

But inside the upperclassmen’s darkened room, Robert could barely see anything or make out where Salomonsky was.

Suddenly, a junior put Robert in a headlock, according to the VMI police report. Then, someone fastened a mattress strap around his upper body, pinning his arms to his side, the report said. His feet were duct-taped together, and he was pushed under a bed frame.

“It’s time for some Abu Ghraib shit,” the junior declared, according to Robert. He began playing the Islamic call to prayer on a speaker, the police report said.

Salomonsky was summoned to the front of the room. Robert couldn’t see what was going on, but two juniors hovered over his classmate. One of the juniors placed a towel over his face, while the other junior “dripped water into his mouth,” the VMI police report said. It lasted about five seconds. When he coughed, the rag was removed.

“Yum,” said Salomonsky, who laughed about it.

“I wasn’t like choking on air or water … it was kind of awkward to have water go down my throat when I’m lying on my back,” Salomonsky would later testify at a disciplinary hearing. “But I was never gasping for air.”

Next up was Robert. He’d shaken the mattress strap loose and his hands were free, he testified at the hearing. But his feet were still duct-taped.

The junior who played the Islamic music placed a towel over his face and a second junior pushed it partially in his mouth. Then, he told The Post, one or both of them poured water over his face two different times.

On the first try, Robert was able to drink the water through the cloth and didn’t choke, he testified in the disciplinary hearing. The second time, the rag was pulled taut over his mouth, he told The Post, and when the water was poured over the cloth, he struggled to breathe for a few seconds.

“As soon as [Robert] gasped for air, the towel was removed,” the police report said.

The two freshmen were then ordered to wrestle shirtless, then they were duct-taped together back-to-back and told to leave, according to the police report.

Once he was back in his own bed, Robert said he felt relieved. That changed when he described what had happened to his upper-class mentors.

One of them reported the incident, triggering a criminal investigation by VMI police and consternation among college officials.

Robert’s father, an active-duty Air Force colonel who works as a senior administrator for a defense and intelligence agency, was outraged. He called his son and told him he wanted him to leave VMI. But Robert refused.

Breakout — the end of the rat line — was just around the corner.

“I told him: ‘Dude, I think you’re broken. I think you have Stockholm syndrome,’ ” the father said in an interview.

When he was interviewed by a VMI police officer, one of the juniors who conducted the waterboarding claimed the freshmen were “enjoying themselves” that night. The report also alleged Robert laughed after being waterboarded and said, “Do it again” — claims Robert disputes.

“I didn’t laugh like I was enjoying it. I might have chuckled nervously. I was scared,” Robert told The Post. He didn’t know what would follow. “I thought there was a potential for them to violate me.”

The officer concluded the night’s activities met the state code’s definition of hazing, but not the criminal code’s requirements for hazing charges since Robert and Salomonsky were not physically injured, according to her later testimony at a VMI disciplinary hearing. She thought assault and battery were possible charges, too, but it was up to Robert and Salomonsky to press for them. Neither wanted to.

The college’s superintendent at the time, retired Army Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, was especially upset, according to VMI’s then-commandant Bill Wanovich. Peay called the incident a breach of law and an abuse of the rat line system, Wanovich testified.

Princeton University, AB in English, 2000

American University, MA in journalism, 2011

Warren Wilson College, MFA in creative writing (fiction), 2020

Ian Shapira is a features writer on the local enterprise team.