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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The Ivy League Soldiers (it turns out their numbers have been growing since 9/11) |
| 2006-11-08 |
| A couple of excerpts, a nice soother for our frazzled nerves: That is not to suggest, however, that our military is bereft of participation from the country’s educated elite. Whatever the intention behind Senator Kerry’s ill-advised comments last week regarding those serving in Iraq, the lawmaker from Massachusetts nonetheless thrust the issue of our finest university students and the military into the limelight. Even as our military has taken fire on elite campuses, a counterintuitive and little-noticed trend among those institutions has emerged. Graduates of America’s best colleges are joining the service for a variety of reasons. ... a considerable portion of the American student body believes in serving its country in time of war. It is in the salons of the anti-war, baby-boomer left, where the military is the degraded, unqualified force it was in the waning days of the draft. Consider the example of First Lieutenant Joseph Kearns Goodwin. Lieutenant Goodwin, the son of President Kennedy speechwriter Richard Goodwin and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, was awarded a Harvard degree in 2001. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he joined the Army and was commissioned as an officer. He spent a year leading men in Iraq, and the Army awarded him a Bronze Star. Retired Captain Paul Mawn graduated from Harvard in 1963 and joined the Navy. Today he lives outside Boston — not far from where Lieutenant Goodwin grew up — and is chairman of the Advocates for Harvard ROTC. The group was formed to “promote a climate of tolerance and acceptance for those who believe in serving their country.” His son attended Dartmouth College and opted for the Marines Corps, where he served in the elite Force Recon unit. “There’s been a long sense of tradition,” he says, speaking of Harvard. Harvard participants in ROTC become members of the Paul Revere Battalion along with students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts, Wellesley, and three other schools. Enrollment in the Paul Revere Battalion, based at MIT, has grown 40% during the last year and a half. Some 18 months ago, there were 39 cadets; now the number is roughly 55. Seven Harvard seniors were commissioned on campus in 2005. The prior year the number was 10. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 congrats is in order, you must be (and should be) so proud, Anymouse :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-11-08 20:46 |
| #2 Congratulations to you and him, anymouse, on both counts. And our thanks to you both, always. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-08 20:32 |
| #1 My son is a recent honor grad from Stanford, and a Marine LT. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2006-11-08 16:25 |