Harvard's Anti-Military Arrogance

With the fall just beginning, activists on campus dream about the battles awaiting them. Which issues will share the spotlight this year? Although time will reveal all, we can be sure about one thing: The fight over ROTC is hardly over, especially after the deans rejected last April's pro-ROTC vote in the Undergraduate Council.

Harvard's arrogance toward the military and its men and women is an important facet of the ROTC debate which must be addressed. Not merely the standard left-wing, anti-military sentiment of many students, but the subtler arrogance of the contemporary Harvard mind--an arrogance which infects even the pro-ROTC side of the debate.

A few weeks ago I was at home reading the September issue of Harvard Magazine. It was morning, I could see my peaceful corner of the Hudson Highlands out the window and I could hear birds chirping and the occasional car go by--I was clearly far from sophisticated Cambridge. I was struck by two quotes about ROTC in Janet Tassel's "The 30 Years War: Cultural conservatives struggle with the Harvard they love." The first was from Undergraduate Council President Noah Z. Seton '00: "ROTC being diminished on campuses means that the higher level officials in the military come from the academies or southern schools; as a result there isn't that liberalizing force in the military." The second is from Weatherhead University Professor Samuel P. Huntington: "I absolutely favored the retention of ROTC, and I still think it should be here.... [It] is highly desirable for the military. One of the reasons for My Lai, for instance, was that there weren't enough people there with judgment and values."

Normally I would ignore such talk, chalk it up to harmless Harvard egotism, and be thankful that these gentlemen support ROTC in their own way. But the unaffected atmosphere of home brought their arrogance into focus. Seton implies that Harvard students can do a better job with the military than those academy boys and those God-forsaken southerners. Huntington believes the My Lai massacre in Vietnam could have been avoided had a Harvard man been in command--that judgment and values are by-products of elite conditioning in academic Utopia.

All of Harvard can defame the academies and "southern schools," but do any of us truly understand what kind of self-sacrifice goes on at these places, what kind of training cadets go through, how well-prepared they are to honorably lead soldiers into battle when they graduate? People at Harvard have their cute anti-militarisms and their stereotypes about the bigoted homophobes in military barracks. But they can't erase the fact that the men and women in the armed services hold their lives out to us each and every day and say "here, this is for you and your freedom." It's a precious gift that should be treated like gold. Can we give it nothing more than indifference and contempt?

As for Huntington's remarks? My Lai wasn't the result of unschooled insensitivity. It came from that dark side of man's nature which most assuredly spans the boundaries of class and education. Theodore J. Kaczynski was a Harvard man, wasn't he? And I recall that Fidel Castro, Ted Bundy, and Dr. Josef Mengele were "educated" men. Schooling can't wipe away bloodlust and evil from the human spirit--it paints them nicer colors, making them all the more horrible indeed.

Some pro-ROTC students believe it's unreasonable to push for the University's full acceptance of ROTC. Or, at least, that it's unreasonable to welcome ROTC without conceding that it should undergo that "liberalizing force." But it's not as unreasonable as Harvard's 30-year cold war with the military and its men and women--who, although imperfect like all of us, devote their lives to our freedom, our ability to pursue the lives we will and our security within these ivory towers.

At Harvard I sometimes forget about sacrifice, American idealism, true freedom. The self-important attitude of the place kind of does that to you. But when I'm at home in my New York mountains, with my brother who's a West Point cadet and my father who didn't go to college but served twice in Vietnam as a Marine, nothing seems more important than defending those things. Maybe I've just got a sentimental attachment to my brother's "Duty, Honor, Country" and my dad's "Semper Fideles." But I think it's more than that. In June of 2001 my brother will graduate West Point and might be sent--like our dad was in '68--to some dangerous corner of the world to defend his country's ideals. He'll know a lot more about honorable sacrifice and leadership than I or those who defame his profession ever will. If we have a war again, Harvard will be quick to agree. We'll all be quite willing to see our academy and "southern school" inferiors off to the front lines.

Aesop said, "its easy to be brave from a safe distance." He was right. For now we continue to debate ROTC on campus and pontificate about military policy. But there's a big world out there full of sacrificing men and women who could teach us a thing or two. Let's open our eyes and ears to them for a change. And let's bring ROTC back to campus with a bit of humility.

Bronwen C. McShea '02 is a history concentrator in Currier House.