(no subject)
So I've been doing a lot of thinking about this resolution to get ROTC off campus. I keep meaning to be all bad-ass and show up to one of the meetings in uniform and give them a piece of my logical yet righteously indigant mind, but other things keep getting in the way...plus I doubt I'd really be as eloquent as I'd like to think I'd be. I keep having conversations with people about this, then come up with really good responses after the fact (what was that French phrase for it again? Wit of the staircase?? Anyways...) So I get to vent at my livejournal instead.
The main reason I'm so annoyed with this resolution is that it forces people to choose one side or the other. If you support ROTC then by default you're anti-gay, and vice versa. This is really really annoying for people like me, who are in or strongly support the miliary, but at the same time sympathetic to gay rights (hello? FireHazards president?). No, I don't agree with the don't ask, don't tell policy and I think it should be changed, but right now I'm not in a position to make that happen, and until then I still have to follow it because IT'S MY JOB. We don't get to pick and choose the orders we follow, because that absolutely cannot happen in a combat situation. (Commander: "Take that hill, soldier!" Soldier: "Nahhhh....."). I'll do whatever I can to make changes once I'm in a position of authority, but in the meantime don't make mine and my fellow cadets' lives more difficult to "send a message" that's not going to make one bit of a difference in the real world.
This resolution doesn't even affect me at all...besides the fact that I'm (hopefully) graduating in two months, AFROTC is already off campus. But that also means that I know first hand how much it sucks, having spent a significant portion of my Princeton career commuting to New Brunswick at ungodly hours in the morning. As much as I make fun of the Army ROTC cadets, I don't want them to have to go through that too.
I actually had about an hour long, remarkably civilized conversation with the guy who started this whole thing. He evidently doesn't foresee ROTC actually getting kicked off campus, but wants a critical review of the school's policy toward ROTC. According to him, there was a study on ROTC in 1989 which recommended that the school nominally support ROTC financially, but otherwise have to do with the program. I.e., no moral support for cadets, supposedly president Tilghman didn't attend the commissioning ceremony until last year. (Incidentally, she's evidently going to be a judge at the All-Ivy drag ball. Putting the gay issue aside - which event is more worthy? A social event, or a ceremony in which students pledge the next 4 years of their life to the service of their country?) So this guy wants the school to do "just the opposite" - withdraw financial support from ROTC, but be supportive to the students. Two problems with this - first of all, it's not like the university gives us that much financial support anyways. Okay, so we get a classroom in the armory and Army gets a whole bunch of rooms, but really, I don't know what else the university helps us with. Other universities offer room and board to ROTC cadets on scholarship. They have dorm buildings set aside for ROTC cadets to live in, and a lot of schools let ROTC cadets move in early so they can get started on their training. Does Princeton do that? Hell no. In fact, Princeton won't even waive the no cars for freshmen rule for AFROTC, when we obviously rely heavily on driving to get to our training activities. Speaking of cars...we asked if we could use the SVC cars to commute to Rutgers. The answer was no, because we're not a student organization. We also can't get recognized as a student organization. Funny how that works. Second, if the university withdraws what little financial support it does give ROTC, that IS hurting the cadets. You can't say that you support the individuals but not the organization...it just doesn't work that way. Either you support me and my choice to join the Air Force, and thus the Air Force by extension, or you don't support any of it. So in this guy's ideal situation, Army ROTC would move off campus, and ROTC alumni would make donations to pay for shuttling cadets back and forth to training activities. Um...hello? ROTC alumni...donations? Dude, they joined the *military* - they're not exactly rolling the dough here.
Okay, so maybe the University wouldn't let any other company that so openly discriminates against any group of people on campus to recruit, but last time I checked, the military isn't a "company" in the business of making profit. Last time I checked, no other company requires its employees to be willing to die in support of its mission. See, we have this little thing called the "Code of Conduct." It governs how we're supposed to act in combat and if we're taken prisoner. The first article goes something like this (actually, it goes exactly like this, since I've known since I was about 15): I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." Let's see some I-banking company ask its employees to take THAT oath. So I guess the bottom line is this...the don't ask don't tell policy undoubtedly ranks as one of the U.S. military's poorer decisions, but let's not take it out on the ROTC cadets, huh? At the risk of sounding melodramatic, we're willing to die for you. You think you could let us hang out on campus?
The main reason I'm so annoyed with this resolution is that it forces people to choose one side or the other. If you support ROTC then by default you're anti-gay, and vice versa. This is really really annoying for people like me, who are in or strongly support the miliary, but at the same time sympathetic to gay rights (hello? FireHazards president?). No, I don't agree with the don't ask, don't tell policy and I think it should be changed, but right now I'm not in a position to make that happen, and until then I still have to follow it because IT'S MY JOB. We don't get to pick and choose the orders we follow, because that absolutely cannot happen in a combat situation. (Commander: "Take that hill, soldier!" Soldier: "Nahhhh....."). I'll do whatever I can to make changes once I'm in a position of authority, but in the meantime don't make mine and my fellow cadets' lives more difficult to "send a message" that's not going to make one bit of a difference in the real world.
This resolution doesn't even affect me at all...besides the fact that I'm (hopefully) graduating in two months, AFROTC is already off campus. But that also means that I know first hand how much it sucks, having spent a significant portion of my Princeton career commuting to New Brunswick at ungodly hours in the morning. As much as I make fun of the Army ROTC cadets, I don't want them to have to go through that too.
I actually had about an hour long, remarkably civilized conversation with the guy who started this whole thing. He evidently doesn't foresee ROTC actually getting kicked off campus, but wants a critical review of the school's policy toward ROTC. According to him, there was a study on ROTC in 1989 which recommended that the school nominally support ROTC financially, but otherwise have to do with the program. I.e., no moral support for cadets, supposedly president Tilghman didn't attend the commissioning ceremony until last year. (Incidentally, she's evidently going to be a judge at the All-Ivy drag ball. Putting the gay issue aside - which event is more worthy? A social event, or a ceremony in which students pledge the next 4 years of their life to the service of their country?) So this guy wants the school to do "just the opposite" - withdraw financial support from ROTC, but be supportive to the students. Two problems with this - first of all, it's not like the university gives us that much financial support anyways. Okay, so we get a classroom in the armory and Army gets a whole bunch of rooms, but really, I don't know what else the university helps us with. Other universities offer room and board to ROTC cadets on scholarship. They have dorm buildings set aside for ROTC cadets to live in, and a lot of schools let ROTC cadets move in early so they can get started on their training. Does Princeton do that? Hell no. In fact, Princeton won't even waive the no cars for freshmen rule for AFROTC, when we obviously rely heavily on driving to get to our training activities. Speaking of cars...we asked if we could use the SVC cars to commute to Rutgers. The answer was no, because we're not a student organization. We also can't get recognized as a student organization. Funny how that works. Second, if the university withdraws what little financial support it does give ROTC, that IS hurting the cadets. You can't say that you support the individuals but not the organization...it just doesn't work that way. Either you support me and my choice to join the Air Force, and thus the Air Force by extension, or you don't support any of it. So in this guy's ideal situation, Army ROTC would move off campus, and ROTC alumni would make donations to pay for shuttling cadets back and forth to training activities. Um...hello? ROTC alumni...donations? Dude, they joined the *military* - they're not exactly rolling the dough here.
Okay, so maybe the University wouldn't let any other company that so openly discriminates against any group of people on campus to recruit, but last time I checked, the military isn't a "company" in the business of making profit. Last time I checked, no other company requires its employees to be willing to die in support of its mission. See, we have this little thing called the "Code of Conduct." It governs how we're supposed to act in combat and if we're taken prisoner. The first article goes something like this (actually, it goes exactly like this, since I've known since I was about 15): I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." Let's see some I-banking company ask its employees to take THAT oath. So I guess the bottom line is this...the don't ask don't tell policy undoubtedly ranks as one of the U.S. military's poorer decisions, but let's not take it out on the ROTC cadets, huh? At the risk of sounding melodramatic, we're willing to die for you. You think you could let us hang out on campus?