Leaving The Citadel

Here are some of Shannon Faulkner’s comments as she announced Friday that she was leaving The Citadel:

“The problems were not the ones The Citadel were worried about. They are due to stress--the stress of the past 2 1/2 years of fighting--not the stress of the corps or anything like that. . . .

“I know that by me leaving today so many people are either mad at me or disappointed in me, and some are elated that I am leaving.

“All I have to say is, I have to think about my own health right now. It’s hard for me to leave because this is something I have worked on for so long. . . .

“But I really hope that next year a whole group of women will be going in. Because maybe it would have been different if the other women would have been with me. . . .

“It just seemed like everything came crashing in on me at once from the past couple years. And I know that all the attention now is focused on me and not on the other knobs that left, because I am not the only one leaving.

“I don’t think there’s any dishonor in leaving.

“I think there’s [no] justice in my staying and killing myself just for the political point. Everybody here wanted me to succeed, including me most of all. . . .”