War in West Windsor

In the woods beyond West Windsor Fields last Friday, an army battalion captured a prisoner of war. Dressed in fatigues and armed with automatic weapons, the 23 members of Princeton’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program joined forces with 17 students from the College of New Jersey and Rider University to engage in simulated battle situations.

Though the cadets involved said they appreciate the close-knit ROTC group at Princeton, several said they sometimes feel distant from other members of the University community, many of whom, they noted, find their commitment to the military surprising. The variety of opportunities available to Princeton undergraduates, many students’ lack of familiarity with the military and the legacy of the Vietnam War are some of the main reasons Princeton ROTC has remained small, cadets said.

“Doors are open when you graduate from Princeton, and I think that a lot of other places have cadets and students [who] aren’t going to have such an expansive network of people and connections when they graduate, so they see [the military] as their best opportunity,” Cadet Gregory Colella ’12 explained.

Colella added that when students learn he is in ROTC, they almost always react with surprise “that someone at Princeton is planning to go to the military after college.”

“They don’t consider the military a suitable thing for a Princeton graduate to do after college,” he said.

Lt. Col. John Stark echoed Colella’s statement that Princeton students are often dissuaded from joining ROTC by the unusually large number of other opportunities available to them.

“At Princeton, most of these kids have opportunities to go out and make careers that are well-known in advance … Some of them know even before they come to Princeton that they have connections in the business world,” he explained.

ROTC recruitment has been further hindered by the legacy of the Vietnam War, Stark noted.

“[After the Vietnam War,] people had a sour taste toward the military for probably 20 years,” Stark said. “I think the military is a hard choice. There is so much sacrifice involved, and kids that have the opportunities that Princeton students have [are] not always willing to give up their summers. They’re not willing to move every two or three years. They don’t want to put their lives in danger as easily as someone who is trying to strive for a position of honor.”

Cadet Samuel Gulland ’10 also placed the blame for Princeton ROTC’s low enrollment on the damage to the military’s public image incurred during the Vietnam War.

“America’s best and brightest young people don’t really consider military service,” he said. “It’s kind of something that’s continued from Vietnam.”

The Vietnam War broke many families’ traditions of serving in the military, he added.

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“People look to see what their older brothers are doing, what their parents are doing [and] what their classmates are doing, and in large part it’s not military service,” he explained.

The Vietnam War era was a volatile one for Princeton.

In 1970, students firebombed the University’s Armory — which housed Princeton’s ROTC program at the time — in protest of the bombing of Cambodia. After the incident, the administration voted to remove ROTC from campus. In 1972, ROTC returned to campus in what several cadets described as a diminished capacity.

Today, most cadets said they find the current University administration supportive of their organization.

“Our relationship with the administration is growing a lot, especially with the admissions committee,” Cadet George Puryear ’09, the ROTC battalion commander, said. Puryear pointed to ongoing negotiations with the University to consider granting credit for ROTC academic classes as one example of this improving relationship.

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said in an e-mail the administration's relations with the ROTC program fell outside her direct purview and referred a request for comment to University Spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96.

Cadet Norman Bonnyman ’12 said he believes the administration has difficulty offering its full support to ROTC because of opposition from administration and faculty members rather than from students. He added that he thinks the administration is “rather successfully” balancing controversial, mixed opinions about ROTC and the military.

“I think the administration looks at us [as] 17 students that are involved in this military organization [whose] biggest visibility is running in the morning when no one’s awake or doing exercises in the woods on the edge of campus,” he explained. “You almost don’t see us training.”

Bonnyman said that while service organizations like Teach For America are permitted to recruit aggressively, ROTC receives no encouragement from the administration to recruit on campus.

“It has a lot to do with culture,” he explained. “It’s reflective of the nation’s elite, which is very disconnected.”

Cliatt explained that “while ROTC’s programs are inconsistent with some of the University’s policies, Army ROTC operates on Princeton’s campus in recognition of the importance of the program for the country and for some of our students.”

Cadet Amanda Van Duynhoven ’11 added that she thinks the low ROTC enrollment may stem in part from Princeton students’ limited understanding of the opportunities available in the military.

“I feel my strengths are best used in roles other than combat, and the military has a lot of non-combat activities that people don’t really think about that often,” she said.

Van Duynhoven, who is committed to serving four years of active duty in the army after graduation, hopes to work in military intelligence or a similar field and eventually study international law.

She added that a conception of the military as purely focused on combat leads many to undervalue it, particularly in terms of conflict resolution in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cadets said they were confident, though, that the perception of the military among “the nation’s elite” is changing for the better.

“[The military] is becoming much more necessary,” Puryear said. “Students are starting to realize this.”

The change is especially important for cadets like Gulland, who said he was deeply concerned about the “growing gap between the best and brightest civilians and ... our military.”

Civilian leaders are “more likely to misuse the military if they view it as ‘them’ rather than ‘us,’ ” he added.

Van Duynhoven also stressed the need for a wide range of educated viewpoints within the military on issues like the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“I think what we need is people of diverse political views in the army,” she said. “If supporting every single thing the military does is a requirement for joining, the type of military we get is going to be very resistant to a lot of things.”

Stark encouraged Princeton students to keep an open mind about joining the military, adding that it was possible for undergraduates to try out the program without committing to long-term service.

“We are not automaton robots. We’re not fascists marching around on parade for [the] Fox News [Channel]. We are normal, regular, patriotic Americans who want to help you to fulfill your need or your desire to serve your country.”

The cadets stressed, though, that they also respect the other ways students serve their country, including joining the Peace Corps or doing missionary work.

“Service isn’t just in the military,” Puryear said.

But for him, the choice was clear.

“Some kids want to be astronauts; some want to be in the NFL. I’ve always wanted to be an airborne ranger,” he said.