NYTimes: Send ROTC Back to School talks about the relationship between the military and Ivy League schools- namely, that there isn't any. It says, among other things:
At Yale, which has supplied more than its share of senators and presidents, almost none of my former classmates or students ever noticed the absence of uniforms on campus. In a nation at war, this is a disgrace. But it also shows how dangerously out of touch the elites who shape our national policy have become with the men and women they send to war.
The first instinct here, especially if you are part of the liberal elite (or any elite) is to defend the separation, insist that colleges and universities should not subject their students to the out-of-touch military viewpoint. But I think that's wrong. and I think that there are many benefits to having ROTC and other military programs available on university campuses.
Let me explain my background here. I grew up in a wealthy northeastern suburb. Few minorities, very little socio-economic diversity. I had a little more experience, having spend some years abroad as a child, but basically, everyone in my town had certain things in common. You were expected to go to college after high school. You were expected to end up in a white-collar (or possible pink-collar) job. On rare occasions, my peers would apply to the military academies, but I don't know of anyone who actually went. The opinion on the military was basically, they're a necessary evil. Sure, the country needs it, but it's not something that WE do.
I went to college at a medium-small public university in Virginia. This school happened to be located pretty close to one of the largest military installations in the country. We had a ROTC program, and a military science major (essentially the same thing, I believe). And we had a LOT of students who's parents had been in the military. It was already harder to look at it with the same viewpoint.
And then I started dating a Marine. It went on for about a year and a half, during which he was deployed for about 6 months (and then deployed again immediately after our breakup). And my hometown ideas on the military have been completely destroyed.
That's a good thing.
Now I know the military for what it is. Not just a hopelessly out-of-touch institution, one that is anti-feminist, homophobic, barbaric and violent. Instead, I learned that it's an institution that can help people (low-income, unfocused, or wanting to serve their country) find a place for themselves. I met several young men who told me that joining the military gave them a future. I know that the institutional problems (don't ask, don't tell, among many) are not the fault of the people who work there. I've seen that it can provide people with stability, strong friendships, and an education.
And because I know them, if I were in the position to send them to war, I would surely think about how necessary that war really was.
There are any number of benefits to having ROTC on campus. I think that students would be better off having friends in uniforms. It would open up some of the elite universities to low-income students who don't want to take student loans. In general, I think it would stretch the conversations on those campuses, bring in new views and opinions, which surely can only be good.
And just maybe, those dialogues could go the other way too, back to the military. Let's not forget, ROTC graduates become officers, can gain influence in the institution. They will bring with them the dialogues they'll have on campus. Maybe that is how to change the military from the inside, so that it becomes more open, and open-minded.
Maybe the military and the universities can learn from each other.