Vietnam and Lowered Requirements Bring New Changes and Growth to ROTO

The Reserve Officers Training Corps has never been a favorite extra-curricular activity at Harvard. Something less than five per cent of all undergraduates now enroll in Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force ROTC combined. But this year, with the sudden increase in draft-awareness born of the war in Vietnam, a boom seems to be beginning in ROTC enrollments.

No student can ignore the stories of seniors who have been classified 1-A and sent to Vietnam because they were a course short, or of frenzied appeals to provincial Selective Service boards who fail to understand Harvard's system of course credits. The draft has become an inevitable stumbling block for any student who considers the slightest deviation from a program of four sequential full years of college. The desire for security has led many of them to reconsider ROTC.

The government, the students are discovering, has met them half-way with a new two-year program. The college sophomore may devote six-week chunks of two successive summers to a leadership-oriented, genteel version of Basic Training, and in the next two years give up only enough time to take four half-courses in ROTC and two hours of drill each week. He graduates, spends two years in the service, and he's out.

But despite the new program, ROTC officers admit, if somewhat reluctantly, that the threat of the draft still pulls in many applications. "Enrollment always varies with the student's evaluation of the world situation," says Major William F. Scott, associate professor of Military Science. Scott points out that enrollment in ROTC declined sharply immediately after the Korean War, then increased again with the Berlin crisis in 1961. Enrollment, Scott expects, should increase again next year.

Yet much of the increase can be traced to the two-year program. Harvard's Navy unit expects to swell from 74 to 126 this year, and mostly in two-year enrollments. The Air Force, composed of six cadets, now offers only two-year contracts, and has received 100 applications for summer camp. The Army expects similar increases, while the Marines generally follow changes in Navy enrollment.

Cadets who choose the two-year program must attend a summer camp (or summer cruise, in NROTC) between their sophomore and junior years. After six weeks of practical instruction in first aid, foxholes, artillery, tanks, and defensive gas warfare--after dismantling, cleaning, reassembling, and firing a panoply of weapons ranging from the .45 pistol to the M-60 machine gun, the cadet finally decides whether to sign the contract.

Four Harvard men went through the program at Fort Knox last summer; this summer, 40 are expected to enter the two-year gauntlet at various camps. Again, Vietnam may have had much to do with the rise in applications, but few students knew about the two-year program last year. It was not the subject of an intensive information campaign until last September.

The war in Vietnam affects ROTC in other ways. For the first time, ROTC cadets are learning counter-insurgency, now a standard part of both the military and Marine curricula. In Mil. Sci. 2hf for instance, cadets take a unit on the basic tactics of guerrilla warfare. Their June final has included questions like, "You are an infantry captain directed to command a combat patrol consisting of three rifle squads and two mortars. Your mission is to attack and seize the hamlet in the following sketch. State your plans." The sketch which follows contains areas marked "jungle," and a body of water labelled "Dukong river." The hamlet depicted in the sketch is protected by fortification marked "moat--sharpened stakes. Also included are miscellaneous data on the number of rifles and mortars which the enemy has, and the fact that there are 100 women and children the hamlet.

Cadets in Naval Sci. 52, the course for prospective Marine officers, answer questions like, "Describe brief the manner in which the Viet Cong approaches the problem of winning the support ...of the South Vietnam ese villager," or "What does (Vo Nguyen) Giap consider the really decisive factor for victory in any revolutionary war?"

Last fall Harvard's Army ROT unit formed a counter-guerilla platoon. About 15 or 20 cadets continue to practice bridge-building, ambus demolition, and small-group movements as an extra-curricular active for which they get no ROTC credit.

Harvard's ROTC faculty, however deny that the counter-insurgency instruction is a preparation of officers for Vietnam. They point out that counter-insurgency should be a part of modern military training, even if the United States is not fighting a guerilla war.

Military and Naval Science course though not exactly guts, are among Harvard's less demanding offerings. According to the Office of Tests, the average Naval cadet scores half of a grade point higher on his NROTC courses than in his other courses. Cadets consider the easy B in a half-course one of the attractive fringe-benefits of ROTC.

What some cadets find attractive, however, other cadets complain of. They say that the material covered, while necessary for officers, is dry, tedious and unchallenging. They complain that they are learning facts and dates rather than concepts; that they are being taught by soldiers rather than teachers; and that they take too many objective tests and too few essay tests.

There are some petty, albeit indispensible, objective questions on ROTC exams. The cadet is asked to "determine in yards, to the nearest ten yards, the straight-line distance between monumented Bench Mark 295 in grid square FL9975 and monumented Bench Mark 300 in grid square FL9780." He must be able to fill the blanks in the question, "When marching at quick time, swing your arms--inches straight to the front and--inches to the rear of the seams of your trousers."

But at the same time he must be able to "Discuss the relationships and differences between Dulles' strategy of massive retaliation and MacNamara's doctrine of flexible response. Indicate the role of conventional war forces in each strategy." In other questions cadets must discuss the impact of new technology on strategy and tactics in the Civil War. Or explain the significance of limited warfare, as opposed to conventional warfare, within the context of nuclear stalemate. About half of the questions on most of the ROTC exams are essays.

Both Army and Navy, reacting to Harvard cadets' demands for more interesting material, schedule frequent guest speakers, usually Faculty members, both as a part of the curriculum and as part of a supplementary program. The ROTC faculty at Harvard recently participated in a review of the National ROTC curriculum. Lt. Col. George H. Garnhart met this fall with a military-civilian committee at Ohio State University to study the current curriculum. Their recommendations, although not yet made known, may be incorporated into the '67-'68 curriculum.

But no amount of clamor from Harvard's dissatisfied cadets will ever change drill. The ROTC euphemism for it is "leadership lab." Cadets simply endure most of it, for two hours every week. But those who have a chance to take charge and lead the drills say that it is trickier than it looks, and does give them a certain amount of confidence in their leadership abilities.

ROTC finds itself in a rather peculiar environment at Harvard--a community with more than its share of intellectuals and anti-militarists. The student who is interested in ROTC sometimes finds he is not encouraged to enroll.

"I have a great deal of faith in the American government, and when we're in a state of war, I know it is my duty to support the effort," says one cadet. "But I also have a great deal of faith in my teachers and professors here at Harvard, and when so many of them tend to doubt the worth of the war, I start to wonder."

Some of the cadets who have doubts about the war in Vietnam say they try to separate their personal opinions from the duties which they have pledged themselves to fulfill as officers. If they disagree with the government's policy on Vietnam, they often view the questions as one of "poor foreign policy" or "poor tactics" rather than one that raises a basic moral dilemma.

A few cadets say they feel that their proctors tried to discourage them from enrolling in ROTC during the freshman year. None of them, however, consider proctors generally anti-ROTC. "I would anticipate that a few proctors might talk down ROTC," says Harry P. Kerr '64, Faculty Advisor to ROTC, "but so far there is no real evidence of it. All we have is rank hearsay." At least seven of the thirty or more proctors have been in ROTC; these proctors tend to recommend the program if it adapts well to an individual case.

When asked, some cadets will say that they enrolled in ROTC because they believe military service is a personal obligation which they have to their country. "I owe my country a couple of years of my life," one says. Others explain they enrolled in ROTC because they came to Harvard from military schools, or because they come from military families.

Most cadets, however, offer more hard-headed reasons for entering the program. "The cold fact is that they are going to take me pretty soon one way or another," one student says. "ROTC is the best deal for me and or them. I don't want to go in as a private with a college education behind me, and it wouldn't do them any good either."

Another cadet says that he joined NROTC because he was planning a Naval career, but that he has since changed his mind. "I think there's more opportunity outside the Navy. The hierarchy makes it hard to get ahead."

In making their decision, students rarely forget that ROTC pays-and not just the $40 per month which cadets get after they have signed the contract at the beginning of their junior year. They run into monetary incentives at almost every turn. They get $120 per month during their stay at summer camp. When they are commissioned as second lieutenants they draw annual salaries of over $5000 during their two-year term of active duty--enough to finance graduate school in some cases. When they complete their active duty they are eligible under the G.I. Bill, for $100 a month while they are in grad school. Charles Fiening '66, Cadet Commander of Army ROTC, says that graduate schools often prefer students who have served as officers in the armed forces.

Few of Harvard's ROTC cadets feel that they are training to be war heroes. On the contrary, most of them believe that in the military they are learning to be managers, and they feel that a college graduate can spend his two years more profitably as a second lieutenant than as a private. The possibility of schedules and regimentation doesn't seem to bother them. After two years of standing at attention, shuffling forms and memoranda, and perhaps fighting a war, many of them will return to grad school and to the quieter oblivion of the lecture hall.

Most cadets offer hard-headed reasons for entering the program: "The cold fact is that they are going o take me pretty soon one way or another."ROTC officials and DEAN MONRO at recent review of ROTC troops.