For the first time since the Vietnam war, Brown University is allowing students to train and become ROTC officers, Fox News reported.
According to the school’s website, ROTC students may now enlist in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, while being awarded with full-tuition grants and monthly stipends. Upon graduating, the students will become commissioned officers prepared to commit to their chosen service. Three incoming students will be the first since the year 1969 to join the Naval and Air Force ROTC programs at Brown.
“Without question, what all Brown men and women who have served, are serving and will serve in the United States Armed Forces share is a deep desire to make this country – and by extension, the world – a safer, more secure place for all of us,” Brown resident Christina Paxson said. “As the first Air Force cadets and Navy midshipmen since the Vietnam War begin their studies on College Hill, I could not be prouder of the strengthened ties between Brown University and the Armed Forces.”
This development at Brown occurred not without protest.
During the Vietnam War, Brown had joined other Ivy League schools in banning the military from campus as part of anti-war protests. Last year, as the idea was floated to reinstate ROTC at Brown, the University’s student paper published a column condemning the proposal as allowing the “return of the criminals” to Brown.
“It’s a bit disillusioned to think that Brown students should be exposed to every potential career — even more unthinkable to assume that they should be exposed to all potential military careers,” Brown student Peter Makhlouf complained after the school’s administration brought up the idea of bringing ROTC back to campus. “This is not science; this is the art of killing and torturing. It seems that ROTC’s attempt to recruit academically elite students is a calculated attempt to rope the best and brightest into the industry of state-sanctioned violence.”
Makhlouf insisted ROTC be banned from Brown for “ethical” reasons.
Brown’s ROTC training program will not take place directly on campus, however. Instead of hosting units on campus, ROTC students will go to other schools with training facilities in the region.
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