Four years ago, Harvard chose you, and four years ago you chose military service. You chose military service in 2003, in a time of war. You chose military service, knowing that you could be sent by your country in harm’s way. You did not choose the peacetime military, but, rather, the life of a warrior. Harvard honors public service, but is uneasy with national military service, because it is uneasy with war, and with warriors, and it is no longer comfortable with the idea of Harvard as an American university, as opposed to an international university. We all wish to avoid war, none more so than the men and women who must confront the face of war directly. We welcome students and faculty from around the world. But the United States is our country. Without the United States, there would be no Harvard, and we should never forget that. And our country is still at war, and so I salute your courage, your commitment to national service, and the sacrifices you have made and will make.

“Naval ROTC was an obvious symbol of Columbia’s involvement in the war in Vietnam,” says Mark Rudd, one of the student leaders of the 1968 revolt. “Attacking the ROTC became a useful way to attack the war itself.” Moreover, with the current officer corps “very heavily conservative Republican,” Rudd wonders if perhaps training future officers at Columbia might not be a bad thing after all. “They’ll have been exposed to both liberals and the liberal arts,” he says. “Perhaps they’ll moderate the right-wing officer caste mentality a bit.”