Posted on 12/26/2010 6:13:22 AM PST by Saije
If we can allow gays to serve openly in the military, can we imagine the idea of a fighting force that is welcoming to members of an even more reviled and misunderstood minority — Ivy Leaguers?
Yes, apparently. As Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was being repealed, the presidents of Harvard, Yale and several other elite universities practically tripped over one another while racing to the microphone to salute the idea of ROTC students marching across their leafy quads. (Some top schools, such as Princeton, always maintained on-campus ROTC.)
If the celebrated universities that have been less than welcoming to the Reserve Officer Training Corps since the Vietnam War do reinstate the program, it’ll be an important symbolic change to Ivy culture. But that’s all it will be.
When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I took ROTC classes at the nearest university that hosted them — the University of Bridgeport. This necessitated a long, grim drive down I-95 two mornings a week in the predawn murk. Even (especially?) in the Reagan era, the military wasn’t a cool thing to be a part of. Only four students in my class took Army ROTC.
Today, with two wars and the shadow of 9/11 making the military seem much more vital to the nation’s interest than it did during the sputtering final days of the Soviet Evil Empire, the number of Yale students enrolled in ROTC is . . . four. At Harvard, where ROTC is not technically on campus but is easily accessible (students merely have to take the train over to MIT a couple of miles away), the number of ROTC enrollees is 19. At Brown, whose students can take ROTC right in town at Providence College, it’s one.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Doing fine without harvard and yale. Hope the military tells them thanks, but no thanks.
The Ivys don’t deserve ROTC.
>>Some top schools, such as Princeton, always maintained on-campus ROTC
The most incompetent, condescending officer I ever knew in the Navy went to Princeton ROTC. :-)
Implicit Tom Lehrer reference ...
ARTIST: Tom Lehrer
TITLE: Fight Fiercely, Harvard!
Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight
Demonstrate to them our skill
Albeit they possess the might
Nonetheless we have the will
How we shall celebrate our victory
We shall invite the whole team up for tea, how jolly
Hurl that spheroid down the field
And fight, fight, fight
Fight fiercely, Harvard, Fight, fight, fight
Impress them with our prowess, do
Oh, fellows, do not let the Crimson down
Be of stout heart and true
Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard’s glorious name
Won’t it be peachy if we win the game, oh, goody
Let’s try not to injure them
But fight, fight, fight - Let’s not be rough, though
Fight, fight, fight - And do fight fiercely
Fight, fight, fight
we donts needs harvard rotc, or any ivy rotc. screw ‘em.
“In 1933 the Oxford Union, the university undergraduate debating society, passed a famous motion that “This House would not in any circumstances fight for King and Country”. It made headline news at the time: Churchill called the vote “abject, squalid, shameless” and “nauseating”, and it is even said to have misled Hitler into thinking the British had lost the will to fight, so it is clearly important historical evidence, but of what?
The debate cannot be taken as evidence of what people of all classes were thinking. Oxford undergraduates were hardly typical of the population as a whole. They came largely from wealthy upper- or middle-class families; they were highly literate and well-read; and they were more prepared than most people to engage with abstract issues of principle. Also, they were young, and young people often like to take stand or an extreme position precisely because they know it will provoke a strong reaction - as the Oxford vote certainly did. On the other hand, Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates were an influential group, far more so than they are today. They were regarded - rightly - as the rising stars of politics and both the press and politicians took an interest in what the students were saying, especially in their debating societies. Remember also that the vote took place in 1933, before the full implications of Hitler’s rise to power had become apparent. When war finally came in 1939 many of those who had taken part in the debate did indeed fight - and die - for King and Country.” http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/education/churchill_era/exercises/appeasement/part_B1.php
Will not fight for King and Country, but may eventually join in the struggle to protect hearth and home from the invading Hun?
I find the comments on this post - in general - disgusting.
A bunch of morons, finding fault with people they have never met, and do not know.
This behaviour used to be reserved for leftists - have you clowns fallen so far that you think this is OK?
Since you appear as ignorant clowns - some education:
ROTC is a scholarship, allowing those without the big money and connections, or maybe from large families, to attend these schools. Said differently - in your class conscious world - it allows those of middle and lower classes to pay for school without bankrupting their families.
The reason Princeton and Cornell have strong numbers is ther engineering schools. The others lack strong engineering - so have weak ROTC attendance. (Harvard’s numbers seem an anomoly).
Shame on you for finding fault with some of the best officers in the world.
Marine Option Navy Cornell 1983.
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