Possible war does not faze ROTC students
By SHEILA FLYNN
News Writer
As the international atmosphere increases in volatility and the United States prepares for military action in the Middle East, war is becoming a looming reality for Notre Dame ROTC students.
"One of my friends who graduated last year was with the 82nd Airborne," said Sara McMahon, a junior in the Army ROTC program. "He was going to get sent over there [the Middle East], but now they're holding him back. It kind of hit home when he told us that."
Despite this daunting possibility, however, Notre Dame ROTC students and officers said that combat has not been a frequent topic of discussion.
"It's more or less just business as usual with us," said John Phunter, a senior marine. "I think it's probably because, in selecting the military, you sort of just have to go into it."
Junior midshipman Kevin Conley agreed. "It's sort of what you have to understand going into it," Conley said.
Matt Heibel, an Air Force ROTC junior, said cadets rarely express anxieties.
"We talked about it in class the other day and went over the reasons for why the country was considering war, but there was no talk of `Oh, wow, that's going to be us,'" Heibel said. "All my friends in ROTC aren't freaking out or getting more serious or anything like that."
One reason for this silence on the issue, instructors and students said, is the large stretch of time between graduation and the start of active duty for ROTC students.
"After they graduate from school, a lot take time off," said Army Major Don Gardiner, assistant professor of military science. "They can take 30 days of leave and wouldn't even report to their first officer class until August or September. The timeline is so long that any of our college students, to include the seniors, wouldn't be in a line unit until probably 2004."
Rather than immediately entering active duty upon graduation from Notre Dame, ROTC graduates attend several months of classes relating to the specific branches they each choose. The training periods differ with the various branches, as do the possibilities of actually seeing combat. Students who elect to work in intelligence, for example, are less likely to be sent to the front lines than those who select infantry and artillery. ROTC students can also apply for education delays, which allow for them to attend medical or law school before beginning their years in service.
"Even if we talk about it in class or we talk about it with them, they're so far removed from their first assignment that it really doesn't sink in," Gardiner said.
"Even though we don't have the draft going on right now, even if there was an all out World War III, they're going to go through their classes first," Gardiner said of ROTC students. "Even people who haven't been in the army before, they would go first."
And the nonexistence of a draft also contributes to the general apathy on campus toward possible military action, experts said.
"Because of the lack of the draft and because of some of the civil liberties that were gained [after the Vietnam War], I think that there's not the same sense of an age group political identity," said Heidi Ardizzone, assistant professor of American studies.
Students said they rarely hear the topic discussed and, furthermore, almost never hear other students express any sort of concern about the issue.
"It's not like our boyfriends and brothers are going to get drafted," said junior Jessica Shedlock
"I've heard it discussed, but no one has very extreme views," said junior Kelly Even. "The main issue on this campus is what to drink next weekend, not what's going on in Iraq."
And such ambivalence is a drastic change from the atmosphere on the Notre Dame campus during previous decades.
In the 1960s, for example, when the draft was still a military institution, open protests were held and the subject of Vietnam was a ubiquitous topic for thought and discussion, said Mike McCarthy, a Navy ROTC senior whose father was in the ROTC program at Notre Dame during the Vietnam War.
"The campus was really, really polarized," McCarthy said. "You could tell who was in ROTC. They had the crew cuts and everyone else had the hippie hair. There was just a real sense that the antiwar people would talk about how bad the war was and the ROTC people would talk about how unpatriotic the other people were."
This political disinterest, experts say, is typical.
"Young people today are less likely to be interested in political events than the young people of 30 years ago," said David Campbell, assistant professor of political science.
Yet despite the general trend toward political indifference, Ardizzone still cautioned that the campus could yet erupt into a politically tense "hotbed."
"I would actually say you would find the same thing in the early period of the 60s," she said. "We're at a different point in the war."
All News Stories for Wednesday, October 9, 2002
