The value of ROTC

Sir William Butler, a 19th-century British general, once observed, "The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards." He was absolutely right then, and his words ring equally true today. It is deeply regrettable that American society is on a path leading to precisely the kind of rigid separation between civilian culture and military culture that Butler warned about.

Nowhere is this separation more evident than at campuses of our nation's elite universities, where Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs have been under attack for the last several decades. This trend began before the 1960s, but it was the national outcry over the Vietnam War that brought it to its absurd conclusion.

The conclusion, as it stands, is this: ROTC is banned, by policy and by practice, from half the Ivy League, including Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities, as well as Stanford University. Although these schools cannot actually prevent their students from participating in ROTC, they have intentionally made it difficult and burdensome. At all these schools, cadets are banned from holding training sessions on campus--without weapons of any sort--though this is nothing more than physical exercise. As a result, they have to train at other area colleges, which at a minimum increases transportation expenses and wasted time spent in traffic.

At some schools, even more extreme policies are in effect. Harvard, for example, does not allow military representatives on campus at all, whether for career fairs or general recruiting. It also refuses to offer funding to those students who choose to join ROTC, though this is a problem that was fortunately resolved by outside grants. It does all this despite the fact that 900 alumni, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, recently signed a petition calling for the return of ROTC.

The point of all this is not to single out these particular institutions, though they are among the worst examples. (There are some signs that perhaps the atmosphere there is improving, most notably the current Harvard president's statement that military service is "noble.") Rather, it is to demonstrate that a large number of public figures in our country see the armed forces as an evil influence, one that should be swept under the rug as much as possible. Service members are increasingly marginalized and their commitment is belittled.

Our country needs a greater level of mutual understanding between the civilian and military sectors. This is important for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the military's sheer size. The Department of Defense is the single largest employer in the nation, with millions on its payroll and many more working in defense-related industries. Its budget is over $350 billion. Whether or not you think this is too much, the fact remains that the military will continue to make a substantial economic and social impact on the nation's life.

A crucial feature of armed forces in a representative democracy is the separation between those who formulate defense policy and those who implement it. The former are civilians--elected or appointed--while the latter are in uniform. This separation should continue, but it cannot if our nation's civilian leadership lack the understanding of the military's purpose and needs, past and present. Oversight of the armed forces and strategic development of U.S. foreign policy require an appreciation of the realities of military life.

Some have suggested returning the draft as a means of inculcating military values into the general public. I firmly reject this notion. In wartime, conscription is sometimes inevitable, but whenever possible, the decision to serve should be voluntary. This career is certainly not for everybody. There are other ways to restore the nation's respect for the armed forces and to present military service in a positive light.