This has been a tough year for my university's Greek system. In the past 12 months every fraternity and sorority has been vandalized at least once, and some have been even broken into. To this day we do not know who perpetrated these crimes. Trust me, we all wish we did. We had all thought that this streak of vandalism had ended because nothing had happened in the past month or two.
We were wrong.
Oh, so very wrong.
I mean, I get it. At larger universities it's a more common thing for fraternities to take each other's letters and stash them or put them in some ridiculous place that takes the targeted fraternity a while to find. But at small schools, especially mine, a cardinal sin is to mess with any of the fraternities or sororities letters. We hold those letters dear to us because they are more than just wooden cut outs, but a representation of who we see ourselves as. So, when someone or some people mess with the letters they are messing not only with one fraternity or sorority, but with the whole Greek community.
Just recently I was enjoying the first Sunday of my Christmas break when I received a text message and an urgent phone call from one of my fraternity brothers. He had asked if the letters were absent from our front porch when I left to head home the day prior. I said they should be there because I stumbled into them at 5 a.m. on my way to the airport. I asked again just to make sure that he wasn't kidding that our letters weren't stolen.
Nope, they were stolen. Right from under our noses. Off of our front porch.
Whoever did it knew that everyone that lived there would be gone for Christmas break so they were left vulnerable. The opportunity was there and they seized it much to our dismay.
This is the second time that this has happened. The first time was in April when our letters were stolen in broad daylight a week before our formal. We got one of them back, but they didn't return it to our property; instead, they threw it onto one of our alumni's front yard in the middle of the night. Now, they've struck again. What was their goal? To strike fear? To mock us? To try and hurt our spirits? I don't know, but what I do know is that they didn't accomplish their goal. Rather than being angry, or crestfallen we are energetic to create new letters and have been brought closer together as brothers due to the theft.
I wish though we knew who did this. In the past year, these vandals have broken numerous times other letters of greek organizations, and stolen them without ever returning them. I don't think its funny, and I don't think stealing property is ever done in good spirit. I can't change the past, but as a community we are all now taking necessary precautions to protect what we love, our letters. So, to the vandals that brazenly took our letters, to the vandals who broke Theta Chi's letters multiple times, to the vandals who stole Chi Omega's letter, to the vandals that brazenly tried stealing our cannon over the summer, we will be waiting and watching, and hell have no fury like our greek system when we catch you in the act. Justice will be served.
