Step in the Right Direction

Enough political correctness. It's time for all the Ivies to offer ROTC.

Ivy Leaguers and the military have begun a drive to put ROTC back on campus at Harvard, Yale and Columbia as they try to heal the lingering wounds caused by the antiwar protests of the 1960s that led to the corps' banishment there.

A recent conference on the Harvard campus brought together about 100 participants from nearly every military branch and several Ivy League schools, from ultraliberal professors to retired admirals. Their goal: closing the ideological crevasse that still separates the military from some Ivy League circles.

Don't make this harder than it should be

Congress may revisit a past ruling that allows Military Recruiters access to high school students.

Mary Adams doesn't want her daughter hearing pitches from military recruiters as she completes her high school education.

"They promise them all kinds of benefits without telling them of the risks," said Adams, a registered nurse whose daughter is a sophomore at a high school in Rochester, N.Y.

Thomas Gregory disagrees. Three years ago, he feared losing his son to
the streets. But thanks to a meeting with a military recruiter, his son gained a
career, an education and a brighter future.

"This is not a numbers game, as I've heard, and we're not creating
killers. What we are creating is citizens for tomorrow," Gregory said during a
February meeting of the Rochester Board of Education, which is considering
whether to limit recruiters' access to contact information for high school
students.

OYE Comment: Without question Military Recruiters have a difficult, very important job. We will happily highlight anyone in Congress that may attempt to make a recruiters work more arduous.

Code Pink now has a competitor

Street theater from anti-war activists.

A day’s wait brought relative quiet for antiwar activists who locked themselves to a pair of military recruiting office doors in Minneapolis Friday. Without much reaction from police or recruiters (at least as of early afternoon), the protesters took advantage of heavily trafficked Washington Ave. SE to spread their message.

OYE Comment: If they really wanted to help end the wars they probably would get much more mileage from doing something like raising $ for an antiwar candidate. But this is probably beyond them since one will not get their face in the newspaper for fundraising.

Even their elders look down on the CR's

OYE believes anonymous sources should not be used to advance a storyline or opinion............unless of course the anonymous source makes a derogatory remark referencing College Republicans.

“This was engineered by a bunch of people who ought to be involved in College Republicans, not the RNC,” complained a well-connected Republican sympathetic to Steele. “It’s not that they’re not well-intentioned, but it’s just juvenile.”

An Optimistic Observation

We hope Thomas E. Ricks is correct in interpreting his recent encounters.

After I spoke at Princeton the other night, I was surprised by the stream of young men who came up to told me that they are joining the Marines or Army after graduation.

On reflection, I shouldn't have been, because lately I've been noticing this phenomenon of graduates of elite universities going into the military. This isn't a tidal wave, or even a fad, but I think a steady self-selection.

H/T: LT Nixon

Too funny

Silly College Republicans. They won't take to the streets and march down to a Military Recruiting Station, but when there's a threat that their parents taxes may be raised.........

March Military Recruiting

Incredible news.

The armed services once again beat monthly recruitment and retention goals in March, with the Marine Corps and Army Reserve posting the strongest percentages.

Kinda Pathetic

When the Chairman of the College Republicans is reduced to asking for even a $5 donation it's probably time to A.) dump this dumbass or B.) rethink they're tactics, as the current ones are not gaining traction.

NOTE: check out the forced smiles on the 2 unfortunate enough to have been dragged in front of the camera with Charlie.



OYE Comment: The possibility exists that Chairman Charlie is an infiltrator from the Democratic Party tasked to destroy the next generation of Republicans before they leave campus.

DADT Update

Iraq War veteran and Pennsylvania Congressman, Patrick Murphy, stands up against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

Roll Call is reporting that Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) will take the lead in advancing legislation to overturn the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy when it's current sponsor, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), is confirmed by the Senate and moves over to the State Department to be President Obama's Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

OYE Comment: We would like to again thank Patrick Murphy for opposing DADT. OYE firmly believes that serving Our Country should include all patriotic Americans and not be limited to heterosexuals.

Ivy League Schools and Military Service

Frank Schaeffer explores quite a bit in this post; from the elite schools reluctance to offer ROTC, his transformation as the father of a Marine and a call to President Obama to aggressively encourage our finest universities to offer ROTC.

The issue of Ivy indifference to the military was highlighted by who did not participate at our conference. Though they had been repeatedly invited by both faculty and students no one from the Harvard admissions office, the provost of Harvard's office or the president of Harvard (or even a representative from her office) chose to attend.

The Harvard administration had an historic opportunity to enter into this vital discussion and they ignored it. In a time of war when their fellow Americans are dying, no one from the Harvard president's office would even cross the street to dialogue with top military educators and strategists or even pay their respects to the military visitors on campus.

The military participated on a high level, as opposed to the Harvard administration. We had generals, admirals, and top administrators present. It was a clear illustration of how many members of the academy have washed their hands of concerns for our national security, let alone respect for our men and women, as if somehow they are living in their own country, or even on another planet. It was not always so, as the memorial wall at Harvard to the many fallen Harvard hero alumni attests.

We Respectfully Disagree

From the Army Times (for more read here):

More than 1,000 retired military officers, including several who were top commanders, are urging President Barack Obama and Congress to maintain the law that bars gays from serving openly in the armed forces.