Also

In later years, when asked to compare himself with a typical Citadel grad, he liked to say, “I’m richer, smarter, more famous and nicer.”

Relations between Conroy and his alma mater began to deteriorate in 1970 with the appearance of “The Boo,” his self-published novel based in part on Lt. Col. Thomas Courvoisie, the assistant commandant of cadets when Conroy was there.

"It was banned on campus for about six years,” Conroy said, sitting in the Citadel’s McAlister Field House, a place to which he used to think he could never return. His exile from the Citadel really began in 1980, he added, when he published “The Lords of Discipline,” a novel that depicted racism, brutality and official corruption at a place called the Carolina Military Institute, though the disguise fooled nobody.

“That was the nuclear explosion,” Conroy said. “I was warned that it would be dangerous for me to go back to the Citadel and so I didn’t.” He reluctantly missed Ed’s graduation in 1989 and, a few years later, the graduation of his best friend’s son. Then, to make things worse, in 1995, Conroy publicly embraced the cause of Shannon Faulkner, who was attempting to become the first female cadet to enter the Citadel. Back then, Conroy was not just unwelcome on campus, he could not walk the streets of Charleston without someone stopping a car and hopping out to yell at him. “There was one guy,” Conroy said, “who got back in his car and then jumped out again and shouted, ‘Class of ’59!’ ” Conroy laughed and shook his head. “Citadel grads are the biggest bunch of loudmouths who ever lived.”

https://patconroy.com/profiles-of-pat-conroy/new-york-times-reconciliation-at-the-citadel/

The more I look into him with a clear mind, the more I dislike him.