Military Junior College series: Marion Military Institute

Marion Military Institute is located in Marion Alabama and was founded initially as Howard College in 1842. While Howard moved to Birmingham in 1887, where it later became Samford University, the president, Colonel J. T. Murfee (Cadet First Captain at V. M. I. in 1853), and several students and staff elected to remain and formed the Institute as both a high school and junior college. Though H. O. Murfee, the second president of the college, had a vision to turn Marion into some sort of an American Eton, the First World War interrupted and led to the introduction of ROTC. In the turmoil of the Vietnam War, the Army's never-ending search for officers led to the introduction of the Early Commissioning Program, the same that is currently offered at all Military Junior Colleges. Marion first admitted women in 1971, five years before West Point. The Legislature of Alabama placed the Institute under its control in 2006, necessitating the closure of the secondary school, with the final class graduating in 2009. Unlike VMI, Marion uses a more modern military structure, in which Corporals or Sergeants act as team leaders, with Staff Sergeants functioning similar to VMI's Company Corporals. Company Commanding Officers are Captains and executives First Lieutenants, with Platoon Leaders being Second Lieutenants. The Corps of Cadets is organized into a battalion comprising Headquarters and Band through Echo companies, no word on if Echo is still short. Much the same as the New Mexico Military Institute, Marion offers a program for those cadets who wish to obtain an appointment to one of the Federal Service Academies, boasting an impressive 101 appointments in the 2020-2021 academic year, with 385 since 2017-2018. Furthermore, 205 Generals and Admirals have graduated from the Institute. The Institute competes in the NJCAA Division 1 as the Tigers, colors naturally being orange and black. The title and colors resulted from a visit from Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton College at a convocation in 1905, the school adopting the imagery of Princeton. Marion competes in baseball, softball, men's basketball, tennis, cross country, and golf at the varsity level. It is of note that the former football team gave the Crimson Tide their only 100-point game, losing 0-110 in 1922. Notable Alumni of the Institute include legendary United States Marine Eugene Sledge, who attended Marion for a semester in the fall of 1942. Sledge authored "With the Old Breed'' and was later depicted in the HBO miniseries The Pacific. Other notable alumni are Robert E. Hogaboom; the former Chief of Staff of the Marine Corps; William W. Outerbridge, who fired the first shots for the U. S. in the Second World War; and Merlin O'Neill, the tenth Commandant of the Coast Guard. The next article in the series will be on the Valley Forge Military College, a school with a decidedly Anglo-Saxon flair.