This week in Peace Studies, our class had the unique opportunity of engaging in dialogue with several fellow students members of the Gustavus chapter of ROTC. Before our discussion, I knew very little about the program aside from the generals: they are always in Lund at the crack of dawn and they become soldiers after they graduate. It was a very enlightening conversation for me–I honestly didn’t know that much about the military before. The ROTC program trains students to become officers after graduation, emphasizing leadership and education. As a liberally-minded individual who is usually quite anti-war, it was very interesting to get a soldier-in-training’s perspective.
Many people equate being anti-war with being anti-troops or anti-military, an association with which I absolutely do not agree. I may not support a foreign war, but I will always be incredibly supportive of and grateful to the women and men who serve their country. Some of the ROTC members emphasized the fact that all soldiers do not necessarily agree with the reasons for why they are fighting or the current administration, but they are doing their job to protect their country, no matter what. One stated that is in violation of an Army regulation for a soldier to publicly disagree with or speak out against the President. I understand the need for this rule, but at the same time, I question it. In response to questions about this policy, the veteran soldier asked the class, “How many coup d’etat have there been in the United States? Zero.” Right, okay….I get that. But can we really be so blindly trusting of the government? Relying on the citizenry to make changes through their elected officials doesn’t always work. In a country of this size, representative democracy’s flaws begin to appear. Also in light of the Wikileaks conversations last week, how much can the people change if they don’t know it’s happening? If special forces are being commanded to perform ethically questionable acts, the public probably isn’t going to find out about it. How are we supposed to make the change happen then, if no one is saying anything and the people (soldiers) who may know it’s wrong are legally prohibited from doing so? I don’t mean to suggest that the public needs to know about all special covert operations, or that all of those operations are in someway dubious. The conversation just got me wondering about all sorts of semi-conspiratorial ideas, and what might happen if our beloved democracy and checks and balances started to fall apart.