- BitsBlog - https://bitsblog.com -

The R.O.T.C. Dilemma

THIS is the 40th anniversary of the antiwar protests that led to the ban of R.O.T.C. at some of the nation’s most elite universities — Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Tufts. And yet, the attitude on these campuses today is hardly antimilitary….

AT the Harvard commissioning ceremony, General Petraeus did not bring up the campus ban. It fell to Mr. Whitt, the former naval captain, to make the case for bringing back R.O.T.C.  Mr. Whitt quoted a Harvard president from another era, Abbott Lawrence Lowell. R.O.T.C. was established during World War I, and in 1916, President Lowell spoke about why it was important for Harvard and other universities to do their share: “The aim of a country which desires to remain at peace, but must be ready to defend itself, should be to train a large body of junior officers who can look forward to no career in the Army, and can have no wish for war, yet who will be able to take their places in the field when needed.”

Read more at NYTimes by Michael Winerip [1]