My old friend and colleague Jeff Rice has an oped in today's Chicago Tribune, explaining why he has reconsidered his 1960s-era opposition to ROTC. It's not so much that times have changed since the Vietnam War, but rather that he has come to a greater understanding of the military. I strongly agree with him.
He did not write the headline — editors do that on daily papers — and he tells me that he does not care for it, so I am not including it on the blog. Here are the opening paragraphs of the piece:
On Friday, I will attend the solemn ceremony at Northwestern University in which Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps students will take the oath to become members of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. As both a faculty member and graduate of Northwestern, I try to attend each year as these outstanding young people commit themselves to a life fraught with potential danger in service to our country. They have earned and deserve our solidarity and support.
Almost 50 years ago, as a Northwestern undergraduate, I was arrested for damaging the NROTC offices during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration. At the time, many of us believed that NROTC contributed to the war effort, and therefore had to be removed from campus.
As a leftist then and now, I have no qualms about admitting to my errors, one of which was a wholesale misunderstanding of the importance of the ROTC program — Army, Navy and Marine Corps and Air Force — on college campuses.
You can read Jeff's powerful and moving essay here.
UPDATE: Inside Higher Ed picked up the story, here, with some interesting comments.