Three days after the Sept. 11 attacks, in an impromptu speech at ground zero, President George W. Bush said, “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” Less than one month after that statement, our military led coalition forces into Afghanistan.

Despite the sacrifices made by our military in bringing justice to those responsible for 9/11, a handful of Syracuse University students and locals occupied the Army ROTC cadet lounge in protest on Sept. 4, citing U.S. military action in Afghanistan as one reason for their protest.

Regarding ROTC, one protester, Ben Kuebrich, an SU graduate student said, “SU should be an educational space, and a lot of the university’s goals and missions conflict with this military presence,” according to a Daily Orange article about the protest.

ROTC stands for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. So, it follows that the purpose of ROTC is to train future commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Upon commissioning, each future officer takes the United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office.

Namely, they say, “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Following from the oath, ROTC’s purpose is to prepare leaders to defend the U.S. Constitution. In doing so, these leaders will defend the freedoms of our people and the sovereignty of our great nation.

The implications of the protester’s statement regarding the university’s goals and missions raise a red flag. The protester implies that many of our university’s “goals and missions” are hampered by the United States military presence on campus.

So, one wonders which specific SU “goals and missions” the protester believes are weakened by the presence of those who prepare to defend our liberty. Regardless, preparing future military officers to defend our liberty does not oppose the “goals and missions” of SU, and if it does, SU — not ROTC — is the problem.

The chancellor and the other SU administrators who define our university’s “goals and missions” would likely agree that ROTC’s presence does not hamper the university’s “goals and missions.”

Regardless, the protesters should have looked at what hangs on the wall in the cadet lounge: a 9/11 remembrance flag. Above silhouettes of the Pentagon and the twin towers, the flag reads, “Never Forget.”

Although the protesters sat in a room with this banner, they have forgotten.

Michael Stikkel is a junior computer engineering major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mcstikke@syr.edu.

 

Published on September 12, 2012 at 1:00 am