Some Thoughts on Yale and Military Recruitment

From Abu Muqawama, a discussion of whether/how to restore ROTC to Ivy League campuses, triggered by a WSJ article that cites a YPU debate(!). 

To summarize the discussion in the (read them all, seriously) comments, a bunch of Abu M's commentators essentially argue that Army OCS/ROTC doesn't draw upon tropes of service, excellence, and challenge to the same degree that the Marines do. Speaking as a former Yale undergrad, I think those commentators (see e.g. Chris as well as Anon at 10:17) are on to something, but there's an interesting way around the problem.

I can say from experience that several of my friends who have considered/pursued/actually received a commission in the Marine Corps did so precisely because of the image of the Marines as being the toughest and the bravest. The Army was actually doing really decently in both perceptions and recruitment for OCS (much less so for ROTC, which had to drive 30 minutes away to Sacred Heart) but the Navy and Air Force ROTC struggled to pick up any recruits.  

There are some anti-military forces on campus, but they're frankly a sad parody of the '60s student radicals at best. They self-segregate, and almost all of their rhetoric is about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Unlike in the era of the draft, almost all of the opposition to the Iraq War treats soldiers as victims (a condescending and insulting position to be sure, but one that isn't based on hatred, which is at least a starting point...), and there's very little real anti-military sentiment on campus.

Yet here's the interesting thing; Teach for America, State Department, and other similar jobs that invoke imagery of service are pursued by LOTS of people on campus. And, yes, while the Marines have a great image, they also aren't afraid to engage and recruit on campus. They (in)famously were thrown out of the Commons Rotunda for advertising to students, a privilege allegedly only reserved for students but not outside recruiters. The irony? Commons Rotunda is a wall of memorial names that directly inspired Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam Memorial...*

Those sorts of active appeals frankly are only made by the Marines, never by CT-area ROTC or OCS programs, who expect Yalies to find them, rather than vice versa. The Marines email large fractions of the Yale class, and specifically target people who are leaders of campus organizations - in fact, that marketing outreach is almost precisely the same as used by TFA, come to think of it...

The other, more-interesting fact is that Yale already does have decent numbers of veterans participating in upper level IR (M.A.), history, and poli sci seminars, since the Army uses Yale's history and IR MAs as prep programs for officers to teach at West Point, and there's substantial course registration overlap between the grad school and the undergrad school. Since Yale arguably has one of the best poli sci programs for studying intra-state war and transnational terrorism, this is undoubtedly awesome, and builds an environment within the poli sci department that frankly is hungry for more exchange and outreach.

I've been in classes with a few of them, and the interesting thing is that no one seemed to have trouble with military officers or discharged servicemen in their classes, as stereotype from the outside might suggest. Rather, they were perceived almost as knowing EVERYTHING about the War in Iraq, and were treated as having an unimpeachable claim to authenticity that they definitely didn't want, for both professional* and personal reasons. The source of that bending-over-backwards respect? Probably that the military seemed so remote from campus life, in so many ways; many of my classmates had never even really known a military officer before... 

At the same time, they were ideal recruiters simply by their presence and example. There definitely were students who considered joining up as a result of seeing thoughtful and principled military leaders up close. More soldiers getting graduate degrees at Yale? Rarely have forces combined to be so beneficial "For God, For Country, and For Yale," and for COIN.

*Allegedly, she received a C for her design for the memorial in her architectural design class since it was "too derivative" of the Rotunda. This is almost certainly untrue but indicates something about how much the memorial aspect of Commons Dining Hall is accepted as part of everyday life but not really thought about.

** Specifically, my peers seemed to have a lot of problem with the idea that military men don't like being treated as military authorities on political questions, and have legal constraints on what they can say. Which either demonstrates the freedom of academia or its utter distance from reality, and I'm not sure which.

One last note: these are purely my opinions and impressions, and definitely should not be taken as speaking for any current or former Yale student. I have no doubt that my best guesses at how my military and non-military classmates perceived each other are somewhat incorrect in aspects.