The SNAFU of ROTC

By Michael J. Ellis | Friday, October 21, 2005

Tonight's Dartmouth Night festivities will doubtlessly transpire much as they have for decades: rowdy upperclassmen will taunt hapless pea-greens in a quasi-controlled parade through campus, President Wright will deliver his usual platitudes to the crowd assembled before Dartmouth Hall, and one of the epicene á capella groups will sing the Alma Mater before the Bonfire is lit and the freshmen commence their 109 laps. The rendition of the Alma Mater this year will be lacking, though—omitting not only its sons' loyalty, but also a little-known third verse, written to be sung only "in times of war or memorial."

Why doesn't Dartmouth honor "the mighty men of old" who "went forth from the lone and silent North," of whom it's said that "they strove, and they wrought, and they died?." Even if a gender-neutral version memorializing mythical "women of old" would be the inevitable result, it seems to be a glaring oversight in a time of war. However, it is one emblematic of the sad fact that Dartmouth's administrationdoes not make military service a priority.

Certainly, the administration pays lip service to the military, and does so well: James Wright spoke at length in his Convocation speech about his experience visiting wounded Marines in Bethesda Naval Hospital; Dean James Larimore traveled to Ft. Lewis, Washington this year to support Dartmouth Army ROTC cadets engaged in their summer training; and, when interviewed by the Review, Maj. Eric Carver, Dartmouth's ROTC commander, said that the administration has been "more than helpful."

Statistics, however, belie their claims. Clearly, Dartmouth students and graduates are imbued with a desire to serve their country: Teach for America received 111 applications from last year's graduating class, Dartmouth ranks second in the nation among schools its size in Peace Corps volunteers (with thirty-three at present), and Dartmouth even has a Career Services blitz bulletin, "Careers for the Common Good," dedicated to informing students about employment opportunities in the not-for-profit sector. At the same time, there are currently just six cadets in Dartmouth's ROTC program. That's nearly twenty times fewer than applied to Teach for America. Even if knowledge is power, it will take more than a generation of chalk-toting elementary school teachers to defeat Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

As Michael Russell notes in his history of Dartmouth ROTC on page eleven, the College has a long and distinguished tradition of military service— in the early 1950s, almost half of the student body was involved in some sort of officer training program. But interest among students has waned, and "the faculty just hates us being on campus," according toMajor Lowry, former commander of Dartmouth's ROTC program and now Operations Officer at Norwich University. "Ninety percent of them don't want us there."

A culture of hostility to the military is also partly to blame for the lackluster size of the ROTC program. Less than a quarter of Dartmouth's students hail from the South or the Midwest, regions that typically produce a disproportionate share of the nation's armed forces. Over the past fifty years, the College has gone from a training ground to prepare the scions of the wealthy northeastern establishment for careers in national leadership to the finishing school for scions of wealthy suburbanites to prepare themselves for a few years of community service to ease their noblesse oblige-inspired guilt before they head off to their "real" career. Committing to four years of Army service with the very real potential of being deployed overseas hardly fits into the plan, and becomes very gauche to explain at Upper West Side dinner parties.

The administration's error with regard to the ROTC is one of omission rather than commission. While undergraduates' apathy might be the chief problem, the administration can and should do more to encourage students to join ROTC, especially in light of their staunchly pro-military rhetoric. Students at other colleges and universities, including several in the Ivy League, receive full scholarships from the military for joining ROTC. Increasing financial aid for ROTC cadets, even through reductions in fees for room and board, would also go a long way towards showing the Army's ROTC Cadet Command that Dartmouth's administration is serious about supporting the program.

Moreover, students at many other schools receive academic credit for their ROTC training—why not Dartmouth cadets too? At the very least, cadets should receive P.E. credit for their hours spent on the parade ground and firing range, which must be at least as strenuous as the College-sponsored "Meditation and Relaxation" P.E. class.

While the formula that determines funding will likely prevent Dartmouth cadets from automatically receiving 100% support until the College's program gets larger, even a small change in administrative financial support for ROTC could make Dartmouth's cadets eligible for tens of thousands of dollars more in Army scholarships (see page nine).

Until the sources of struggle for Dartmouth's ROTC program are addressed, the granite of New Hampshire will keep a record of the fame of fewer and fewer Dartmouth graduates. But something must done about the hostile faculty, anti-military culture, and apathetic students, passive administration, else there will not be many new names for the hill winds to remember.

The SNAFU of ROTC

Article Tools

Related Articles