Enable VI Colors on Debian 7 Wheezy
Debian and VI are different than other distros, such as Ubuntu. I found all kinds of other/newer advice that did not work. Hopefully this will save someone else some time beating around the Interbushes.
Pre-requisite: If you have not already, install vim
sudo apt-get install vim
sudo vi /etc/profile
Add this line to the end of the file
alias vi='vim'
sudo vi /etc/vim/vimrc
uncommment this line
syntax on
Done. Except now you can do all kinds of customization at your discretion.