On a warm afternoon in early June, Mark Reinhardt '01 stood beneath the lofty ceiling of Nassau Hall's faculty room, accepting his commission as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
Earlier that day, he had received his diploma on the front lawn outside Nassau Hall, alongside more than 1,000 fellow seniors. He had listened to the commencement address by then-University President Harold Shapiro GS '64. He had absorbed the applause of thousands of onlookers.
At this moment, though, Nassau Hall was all but empty. Reinhardt's only companions were a fellow senior who was also joining the Marines, both students' parents, a professor invited by the other student and the Marine captain conducting the commissioning. No University administrators were present. Outside the faculty room, in the entryway of Nassau Hall, hundreds of names stared down from the marble walls — names of past Princetonians who had died in wars gone by, from the American Revolution to Vietnam.
Since 2001, the University has consolidated commissioning ceremonies for all four branches of the military, though they still take place separately from other awards given during commencement. Administrators now make a point of attending the proceedings.
"There has been real progress on that front," said Reinhardt's father, University economics professor Uwe Reinhardt. "More respect now is shown these brave young people by the administration, and I am gratified by it."
Nevertheless, on that June afternoon, Reinhardt represented what continues to be a vanishing — and, in some ways, isolated — breed: Princeton alumni who join the military.
Dwindling numbers; a different cultureIn recent years, very few students have chosen to enter the armed services after graduation. Out of 1,108 graduates in the Class of 2006, for instance, only nine students joined the military. By contrast, in the all-male Class of 1956, 450 out of 750 graduating seniors joined. The trend is not unique to Princeton: Last year, Harvard commissioned only three Army officers, while Stanford's 1956 ROTC membership of 1,100 has fallen to a mere 29 today.
Of course, there was a national draft in 1956 and no similar policy today. But the statistics also reflect a changing ethos at Princeton and other Ivies and, more broadly, shifting cultural expectations of who should join the military.
Well before the 1950s, notable Princetonians, including author F. Scott Fitzgerald '17 and actor James Stewart '32, voluntarily donned the uniform. Fitzgerald dropped out of Old Nassau to join the Army, and Stewart purposely skipped the Air Force's weigh-in because he was determined to join despite being underweight.
Moreover, Princetonians who gained lasting fame even before leaving campus — like celebrated athletic star Hobey Baker '14, for whom Baker Rink is named — often cemented their status by distinguishing themselves in battle after graduation. Baker earned the Croix de Guerre as a pilot in World War I and died just weeks after the Armistice, when his plane crashed during his "one last flight." Though Baker's fate became legendary, he was not alone: As Nassau Hall's walls record, 152 and 353 Princetonians died in World Wars I and II, respectively.
Today, though, as casualties in Iraq mount and American forces are stretched thin, Princetonians' low rate of military service fits the national perception of the military as a mostly working-class organization. Despite the Office of Admission's ongoing efforts to recruit low-income students, the lack of Tigers in the military perpetuates a continuing view of the Princeton student body as mainly upper-class. It also reflects, some say, the more pragmatic and career-focused mindset of today's students, a mentality more focused on garnering lucrative Wall Street jobs than achieving wartime heroism.
Charles Moskos '56, who served as an enlisted man in Germany for two years and now works as a military sociologist at Northwestern, said the drop-off in Princetonian military service began toward the end of the Vietnam War. The transition, he said, stemmed from a change in the composition of the draft pool.
"In my generation ... they were drafting from the top of the social ladder," Moskos said, "which they were not doing toward the end of Vietnam." Nassau Hall's engravings record 24 Princeton alumni who died in Southeast Asia.
Moskos added that today's military recruiters find their job more difficult due to the dearth of "privileged" enlistees — including Princeton alumni — in today's all-volunteer military. At a recruiting conference last fall, Moskos said, he asked recruiters whether they would rather have their advertising budget tripled or have Jenna Bush, President Bush's daughter, join the Army. Unanimously, the recruiters chose the latter option.
"That's what they need," Moskos said. "The only time the country accepts casualties is when privileged youth are serving."
The role of ROTC
Today, most Princetonians who do join the military start out in the University's campus ROTC program. Princeton and Cornell are the only two Ivy League schools that support campus ROTC, with peer universities such as Harvard banning the program in protest of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military. In April 2005, a group of Princeton students proposed a nondiscrimination amendment to the USG senate's constitution, which included language that would have banned ROTC from campus for that same reason. The measure met with student opposition that its promoters described as "surprising," and the USG tabled it.
George Schwartz '07, the cadet battalion commander for the University's Army ROTC, said he has "always wanted to be a military officer," but chose Princeton over West Point because he thought the former would give him a better education. He added that, in his view, Princeton's administration is solidly behind its campus ROTC program, citing President Tilghman and Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson as strong supporters.
University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said the University views military service as one way for students to live up to Princeton's motto.
"In general, when we speak in terms of 'Princeton in the Nation's Service,' we're including not only service to nonprofits," she said. "We're also including work for the government, specific organizations, NGOs and also military service."
Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 said she strives to recruit students with a military background.
"The school values the real-world experience and leadership qualities which those who have served in the military bring to the classroom," she said, noting that since the 1960s, the Wilson School has admitted at least one Army officer each year into its M.P.A. program. This year, nine current or former military officers are pursuing an M.P.A. or M.P.P.
Many of his classmates, Schwartz said, also look favorably on his ROTC involvement, in contrast to the more hostile attitudes he said he has experienced when visiting schools like Yale. Nonetheless, Schwartz said his peers on campus seem somewhat ignorant of the military world — too wrapped up in their own social lives, academic worries or career ambitions to pay it much notice.
"Princeton [as an institution] does recognize servicemen who have distinguished themselves, who have given their lives to their country, but people just don't seem to be aware of it," he said, referring to current University students.
Though exact numbers for the University's Army ROTC program were unavailable, Schwartz estimated that the Class of 2007 includes roughly the same number of cadets as last year, approximately nine members. The Class of 2008 has only two, he said, but numbers are slightly higher among freshmen and sophomores. This year's class of graduating seniors is all male, but women have participated in past years, albeit in smaller numbers.
Schwartz is a non-scholarship cadet — he must serve three years on active duty and five years on reserve after he graduates — while other cadets can choose the scholarship route, which pays full tuition and fees but requires four years of active-duty service and four years on reserve. Upon graduating, all cadets automatically earn the rank of lieutenant.
While still on campus, the cadets train in all seasons, conducting drills each week by the side of Faculty Road, near the woods below the Armory.
From Latin orator to lone Tiger
Graham Phillips '05, his class' Latin salutatorian, took a different path from the one Schwartz will follow, joining the Army without having participated in ROTC. Toward the beginning of his senior year, he said, he began to feel "academic burnout," and abandoned previous plans to seek a Ph.D. in history. The war in Iraq inspired him to join the military instead. Though he didn't necessarily support U.S. policy there, Phillips said he "realized something important was going on and ... wondered if I could play a part and help."
His classmates and professors were surprised, Phillips said, but generally supported his decision. He recalled a conversation with Associate Dean of the College Richard Williams — a Vietnam veteran himself — during which Williams enthusiastically praised Phillips' post-graduation plans.
"[He] told me what a great decision it was," Phillips said.
"People — fellow soldiers — think it's very weird that I am here doing what I am doing rather than working on Wall Street or something like that," Phillips said in an e-mail from his station in Germany. In his company of 150 soldiers, he said, five of the seven officers went to West Point, and all had attended college. Among the rest of the soldiers, however, only three others have bachelor's degrees, and his diploma is the only one from an "elite" school.
Though most of his peers in the service come from middle-class or blue-collar backgrounds, Phillips said he finds the idea of a "poverty draft" condescending and untrue.
"My fellow soldiers ... would be offended by the suggestion that they are somehow 'victims' of a rigged system," he said. "Combat soldiers are proud of what they do."
A broadening effect
Poverty draft or not, some say that without an actual draft, boosting the military's socioeconomic diversity, including recruiting more Tigers and other Ivy Leaguers, might not be easy. Professor Reinhardt said most Princeton students are unlikely to join the military of their own accord.
"There may be a stigma to serving in the military, and it certainly is not viewed as glamorous," he said in an e-mail, "because people who do join will lag [behind] their classmates for at least four years in professional advancement and moneymaking."
Nevertheless, most political observers say a return to conscription remains unlikely, despite ongoing rumors that a draft may be imminent. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) continues to bring the idea before Congress, but most see the proposal as a symbolic protest measure, with little Capitol Hill support and a low likelihood of passage.
Schwartz said it doesn't bother him that his fellow students' future salaries might eclipse his own. "Somebody's got to make the money," he said. "I do this because this makes me happy — I think it's something I have to do."
Still, he added that many of his classmates could benefit from the military's broadening effect, even if they would rather be trading stocks on Wall Street. Because Princeton's undergraduate body tends to be heavily upper-class, he said, many students rarely interact with peers from other socioeconomic strata, a problem military service could remedy.
"People like to hang out with people who are like them — people who look like them, talk like them," he said. "The beauty of the military is that it takes people who are not alike at all and gets them to the point where they can communicate as if they [were] brothers."
Phillips agreed, calling the military a "better microcosmic representation of America" than his alma mater, but added that the shift can be jarring.
"Enlisting in the Army right out of Princeton," he said, "left me in the most profound culture shock of my life."
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