Military-service gap redux
Gene Zitver
military enlistment by graduates of the "elite" universities. (I'm posting it
here because I don't want to humiliate anyone by making them register with The
Wall Street Journal.)
Here's the part that jumped out at me:
"In 1957, 400 of 750 Princeton men served in the military. Last year, it was
three in a class of 1,000."
Of course in 1957 there was a draft which relatively few tried to evade, but
still, it's an astonishing statistic, worthy of an essay by Orwell.
Congressman Charles Rangel, a very liberal and antiwar Democrat, recently
proposed a return to a universal military draft, based on the questionable
theory that if the sons and daughters of Congress members had to face war,
Congress would almost never approve of it.
It's interesting, though, how Rangel's proposal generated virtually no flack
from the left-- the same left that was bitterly opposing even draft
registration a couple of decades ago. I suppose people saw it (probably
correctly) as a propaganda exercise rather than a serious idea.
************************************************
My Ivy League Soldier
Why is that such a rare combination?
BY REGINA E. HERZLINGER
Wednesday, April 2, 2003 12:01 a.m.
It was a typical Cambridge, Mass., dinner party.
The academic/professional guests were seated on damask-upholstered chairs
perched on antique rugs, their charming, well-groomed images reflected in
Chinese Chippendale-framed mirrors. They were onto a favorite topic--the
stupidity of W., Rumsfeld, and the war. One, a hippie academic-turned-chef, was
especially virulent. "The war won't accomplish anything. It is all about money.
The Bushes are in bed with the oil industry. We are fighting to protect their
interests."
Do not get me wrong. This is not a tirade against the People's Republic of
Cambridge. I heard identical remarks about Bill Clinton, William Cohen (then
secretary of defense) and the military forays they waged. Only the setting
differed--the speakers were businessmen and the ornate furnishings decidedly
new--but the sentiments were identical.
The president and secretaries of defense were dumb.
Their wars were stupid.
Geez, I wish I were so stupid. Maybe my friends have the cunning, intellect,
charm, stamina and emotional and physical discipline needed to become the
president of this huge, fractious nation; but I sure don't.
My husband broke into the conversation. "This is not an academic discussion for
us," he noted. "Unlike most of his Harvard College 2000 classmates, our son
Alex chose to serve his country as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Infantry.
Stationed at Fort Drum, New York, he has just received deployment orders."
It was as if he had switched on a flow of electricity. The tenor of the
conversation changed entirely.
"I don't know anyone with a child in the military," said the hippie. The other
guests nodded in agreement.
"How do you feel about it?" he asked me.
"I was shocked when Alex told me of his decision to enroll in ROTC," I said.
"Why don't you enlist when a noble war, like World War II, comes along?" I
asked Alex. "The ROTC way you will serve at the whim of the president, no
matter how distasteful you find the war."
My then-18-year-old son calmly disagreed with me. "We need a standing military
to preserve democracy," he noted. "The military must serve the will of the
country, not its own." With this human face put on the war, the hippie's
attitude changed. "Ask Alex if he wants me to cook him a meal when he comes
home," he said.
Alex's choice of ROTC at Harvard imposed substantial burdens on him. Harvard
has no ROTC on campus. The faculty voted to ban it in 1969. On top of his
academic work and beloved football team, Alex spent 10 hours a week at MIT's
ROTC headquarters. His two burly roommates, football team buddies, recognized
his load when they graciously gave him the only bedroom in their Leverett House
quarters. Their show of support was hardly typical. I was among the few Harvard
faculty present at Alex's ROTC graduation ceremony.
In 1957, 400 of 750 Princeton men served in the military. Last year, it was
three in a class of 1,000. The statistics are depressingly similar in other Ivy
League schools.
Virtually all our friends noted them. When they asked about Alex's welfare,
they said: "We do not know anybody else with a child in the military."
One of the many horrors of the war in Vietnam was the inequity in our fighting
forces, disproportionately drawn from minority groups and those with lower
levels of education. Despite the vows to correct the problem, the widespread
disdain in our elite academic institutions for the military has only
exacerbated it. Absent broad representation from all strata of our society, the
military, and the wars our soldiers fight, can remain a fantasy, virulently and
easily decried.
But as Lincoln noted in yet another widely decried war fought predominantly by
the lower classes, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Ms. Herzlinger, the Nancy R. McPherson Professor at Harvard Business School, is
a member of the U.S. Secretary of the Air Force's Scientific Advisory Board.
c/o Gene
Alan Allport
news:20030402144547...@mb-cf.aol.com...
> Here's the part that jumped out at me:
> "In 1957, 400 of 750 Princeton men served in the military. Last year, it
was
> three in a class of 1,000."
>
> Of course in 1957 there was a draft which relatively few tried to evade,
but
> still, it's an astonishing statistic, worthy of an essay by Orwell.
Interesting, though it is worth keeping in mind that the 1957 figure
represents a historical blip - our situation nowadays is the 'norm' in
American tradition. Until the introduction of the Selective Services Act in
1940, the US Army was, aside from extraordinary and brief periods of wartime
growth, very small - IIRC smaller than Portugal's. And while our
civil-military culture gap is a significant problem, it's also easy to
forget that it is probably narrower today than it was a century ago. The
country's historical suspicion of a standing army and the feeling that
military service was an act of social desperation - "going for a soldier"
being a mark of family shame - took a long time to disappear.
Alan.
ROBBIE
>
>
> c/o Gene
I frightened the shit out of my old pal Karl- the low level drug peddlar,
Orwell fan and, to borrow from Dickens a man with a rooted antipathy to the
application of soap and water (he described Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance as 'Orwell on a motorbike basically', he'd only read that, all
of Orwell's novels and the novelisation of the Chevy Chase film 'Spies Like
Us'; he was, ROBBIE trivia fans, the model for Hooky in my scuzznov 'Death
or Bongo')- back in '91 when I sent him call-up papers with a Min of Def.
letterhead. When I got round there his girlfriend was crying, he was stoned
and going 'where the fuck's Salizberry*' and discussing leaving for the
Costa Del Sol. I told him I'd probably get a desk job in Kuwait because of
slight asthma but him, he'd be A1. Porbably fucking parachute him in. Oh I
had to stand with my back to them...
*Salisbury
Martha Bridegam
ROBBIE wrote:
Guy at my college paper did a lot of interviews for summer internships with
big urban dailies, found a second-best kind of summer job, then decided to
shave his hair into a mohawk because this was still winter or early spring and
he didn't have to be a presentable corporate employee for several more months.
Another kid at the paper called him up pretending to be the Wall Street
Journal saying they were interested after all and could he please come to New
York right away for an interview. Result: one distressed young man banging an
extreme hairdo against the newsroom wall and begging to borrow a wig.
Eventually catches on. Scene ends with seriously angry hot pursuit of
prankster.
/M