Letters

Thanks for the article “Call of Duty” about the present-day veterans attending the college, in the Fall 2013 issue of the Quarterly. I was sorry, however, that there was no mention of the many World War II veterans who attended Vassar in the forties and fifties. We even had a song about them: “Where, oh where, are the ninety-six veterans? Safe now in the wide, wide world.”

Although Vassar was an all-women’s college and could not grant degrees to men, there was an arrangement with New York State that granted BAs from the state after completing course work on our campus. Though only an undergraduate at the time, a corner of me was happy that Vassar did this for those vets. I’m happy for these new vets too.

Editor’s Note:

The vets that came to Vassar after World War II are very much a part of the college’s consciousness and we often mention them in the magazine. In fact, an article in Vassar Yesterday (this issue) reveals the little-known fact that the original “Vassar Vets” tried to start a football team at the college in 1946. But we did err in not including a nod to them in the article on the newest round of student-veterans.