He, among all the cadets at VMI, is most responsible for leading the school forward into the world of military coeducation. So when the first female rats arrive Aug. 18, it will fall to Trujillo and the other seniors, or first classmen, to make sure they find a lasting place there. That's pretty sad. Trujillo is a confessed idealist. If he's aware of the shades between success and failure, he doesn't readily acknowledge them.
Idealists never do.
He swears the corps can pull off a smooth transition to coeducation, and it's hard not to believe him. But then, Trujillo seems to have been on a collision course with this moment his whole life. Trujillo got his first camouflage outfit when he was 5. His mother remembers him playing army with the other kids on the base in Germany where Reggie Trujillo, an Army warrant officer, was stationed. His dream of becoming an Army officer like his father is almost as old as Trujillo.