3 Votes
Columbia University Students Heckle War Vet
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Columbia University is one of many Ivy League institutions that does not support an ROTC program and has not done so in over 40 years. The decision was made in 1969 due to the Vietnam war and student protests. While that event fades into history, Columbia’s most recent argument used against supporting ROTC was the DADT policy violates their own anti-discrimination policy. DADT’s recent repeal has brought the subject of bringing back ROTC once again. The decision might have gone completely unnoticed had it not been for the recent heckling of war veteran on campus. Former SSG Anthony Maschek, a disabled, wheelchair bound veteran (having been shot 11 times), spoke in an open forum in support of bringing ROTC back to Columbia. As Maschek spoke, “It doesn’t matter how you feel about the war. It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting. There are bad men out there plotting to kill you,” to which he was booed, mocked and even called a racist by members of the student body.
The NY Daily News now reports the decision on whether to bring back ROTC is being left to what they’re calling a popularity contest. This would be the same university that taught its students by example how not to behave professionally and diplomatically by poorly introducing Iranian President Ahmadinejad back in 2007. Naturally, the university is not above accepting money from students funded by the GI Bill or other military programs sending servicemen for higher education.
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A healthy sign by Occams
I think this is a media beat up. College students are immature almost by definition, and many of them are passionate about war and justice issues. We don’t expect them to have views on this kind of war that would match those of a shot up vet. We would hope that they had enough sensitivity to show respect to him, but that is probably forlorn when the subject is something that they feel passionate about.
I think the college is showing admirable restraint by allowing the students to express themselves and by supporting their wishes regarding the ROTC policy. Would a college administration that represses the views of its students be giving them a better education. I doubt it. Better to let them make their mistakes, hopefully regret them later, and grow a little wiser.
I was an anti Vietnam War protester at college and I still feel good about that although I have great regret for the impact this had on our vets. My country (and its allies) was never in danger from Vietnamese communists. We lost that war and nothing bad happened to us. I understand now that we were there for other reasons, but they were not revealed to us then, only some nonsense about dominoes.
The war rhetoric then was all about patriotism. We could see this was bull shit and we were right to protest. Our protest said nothing about the valor of our soldiers over there, except that their sacrifice was in vain. However much out soldiers suffered, it was difficult to be grateful to them for it because there was really no benefit to us deriving from it. Our government was doing this to them and that enraged us. This attitude of ours was very sad, but they had a right to hear that and make up their own minds about whether their government was wasting their lives. I don’t think that we would have helped our troops more if we had supported the government in doing that to them. That would have been a much more real betrayal. Eventually we got them out of there.
It is good to see students today challenging the rationale behind our dubious wars. The pro war group has a big authoritative voice, and it needs to be balanced. I might disagree with what the students are saying or how they are saying it but I am very pleased that they are still doing it.