MORE ON AFROTC

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

We are writing in regard to your editorial this past week on the University Air Force R.O.T.C. program.

While we agree with your basic contention that forcing individuals to attend social functions against their wishes is contrary to the Harvard system, we feel that there was a misstatement of facts and a glaring emission is the article that should, in all fairness to those in charge of the program, be rectified.

Those cadets who did not wish to sign up for the unit's social functions had to present their reasons not to Colonel Bostrom, as you stated, but to Colonel Krieger, the cadet colonel and a student at the University.

But more important, we feel you should have brought out that all candidates for membership in the program were told at their September interview that they would be expected to partake in the social functions of the corps and therefore entered the program fully award of this obligation. Jonathan S. Franks '56   Stephen S. Kay '56

It is indeed the cadet colonel they must report to. Yet, we feel that this does not impair the editorial's main contention, since the cadet colonel is responsible for a large part of what goes into a candidate's final grade.

Moreover, to say that candidates are told of there impositions before they formally enter ROTC is in no way a justification for the use of compulsion in the matter of social functions. Although those who join may have simple season to submit, the College cannot unless it is willing to risk impairments of the seademie spirit which University officials have sought, properly and with great effort, to create. Cadets should set be needlessly deprived of the benefits of that atmosphere simply because they join officers training. That their eyes are open does not make the compulsion any more tolerable.