Military views amnesty as dangerous precedent
By EVE MARKOWITZ
Collegian Staff Writer
Carter’s presidency was six hours
old when the news spread that a
quieter war had just ended. Amnesty
had finally been granted, and "hell,
yes!” the evaders could go back
home.
Reaction was subdued in State
College. An ROTC spokesman said
that he couldn’t, comment without
approval first from Washington. And
that would take ten days at least.
A spokesman for a local chapter of .
the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)
responded to a reporter’s query with
a written statement: “We uphold the -
state and national position in op
posing President Carter’s position on
blanket pardons for any persons
refusing to serve their country during
war or national emergency.”
A local Vietnamese man said yes,
he’d comment, but forgot to show up
for both of his interviews.
The issue is not a comfortable one,
especially for those who lost family in
the war.
“Amnesty? It stinks,” said a-local
ROTC: patriots, profiteers mix in 'uniform' duty
ByGEORGE OSGOOD
Collegian Staff Writer
The various ROTC programs at Penn State have been on the
scene for quite some time. They are many things to many
people; misconceptions and stereotypes are rampant. But like
all organizations, ROTC has its attributes and its drawbacks.
According to Lt. Cmdr. Frank Rouse, an administrator at
Penn State’s Navy ROTC program, one of the primary goals qf
ROTC is to give officer candidates an idea of the military
hierarchy and the chain of command and to give them
leadership training and responsibility.
"Mostly, the responsibility doesn’t come until late in the
midshipman's junior yegr,” Rouse says. “We try to con
centrate the responsibility assignments in the last two years of
the officer candidate’s program, so that the experience will be
fresh to him when he goes on active duty.”
Both the Army and Navy ROTC programs at Penn State are
among the largest in the country, supplying hundreds of line
officers and specially trained officers to each branch of the
service. Not surprisingly, the ROTC stereotype held by much
of the student population is invalid. . ~, ..
To be sure, the gung-ho, might-makes-right conservative
element is represented, but it is unfair and inaccurate to hold
all ROTC people up to this image.
Jeff is a student enrolled in the Navy RO_rC program.
"To be truthful, the reason I’m enrolled in ROTC is because
without ROTC I simply couldn’t go to college," he says.
"ROTC pays my tuition and lab fees, buys my books and gives
me $lOO a month spending money. In short, ROTC supports
me.”
“I think this is the reason most people get into ROTC, or at
least Navy ROTC,” Jeff says. "They’re sitting there in high
school and they look in the bank and there’s not enough money
to get them a college education, except maybe at a low
rent community college. For a lot of people, ROTC
provides a valuable alternative: a free college education and
free spending money. ’ ’
More than that, the job opportunities offered by the Army,
Navy, Marines and Air Force are looked upon by many of the
ROTC students as strong inducements in times when jobs are
so hard to come by.
Barney, another ROTC midshipman, says “When we get out
we’re guaranteed food, fairly high-paying jobs and a
tremendous amount of responsibility, plus we re not under
any obligation to stay in the service longer than one hitch if
we want out, we can just leave. It’s pretty well known, too,
that an officer’s experience is looked on by most civilian
employers as a real asset and getting a civilian job is made
much easier.”
.Collegian living
the
dail
man who lost his brother in the war.
"He says it stinks and we go along
with that,” his mother added. “I
really can’t put it into words. 1 ’
As time passed, it was a little easier
for people to express how they felt.
ROTC Colonel Lieutenant G.F.
Jackson said, “If we set a precedent
of people leaving service when
they’re needed most it could
present a major problem.”
Though the Justice Department has
estimated the number of draft
deserters to be about 100,000 men,
Jackson advocates reviewing each
offender’s case separately.
“That might be a monumental
job," he said. “But it was a
monumental job to innoculate people
against the swine flu. Maybe that’s
what you have to do.”
A colleague of his, ROTC Captain
H.A. Shartel, demonstrated the same
unwillingness about granting pardon
to deserters.
“As most military men,” he said,
"I’m opposed to the pardon. I’ve tried
to be broadminded, but I feel it will
have dangerous long-term effects on
For Barney, ROTC is almost exclusively a pure business
arrangement, a simple transaction between two parties that
benefits both.
“Without ROTC I wouldn’t be here, so I was really glad they
accepted me,” he says. “But it’s a simple deal, feally; I agree
to give the government four years of my life, for which I’m
well paid and getting a lot of experience, and they give me a
college education in return, ”
Barney says that he hasn’t ruled out a career in the military
and that he won’t be called on to make a decision like that for a
long time. The ROTC training, no matter how good, doesn’t
approximate active duty and it is the quality and rewards of
duty upon which a junior officer must rrtake his career
decisions, according to Rouse. .
In the Navy ROTC program at Penn State the financial
rewards are of more Importance than in the other programs,
but the qualifications for acceptance are much stricter.
More than 85 per cent of the Navy ROTC students are on the
full scholarship described above, The catch is that 80 per cent
of the Navy ROTC scholarships must, because of a quota
system, go to students in science, math and engineering. The
opportunities for liberal arts majors to obtain Navy ROTC
scholarships .are very few, because the Navy is equipment
oriented rather than personnel or troop-oriented and technical
knowledge is required of more officers, according to Rouse.
'When we get out we're guaranteed
good, fairly high-paying jobs and
a tremendous amount of responsibility
. . . it's pretty well known, too, that
an officer's experience is looked on
by most civilian employers as
a real asset.'
In Army and Air Force ROTC, the percentage of students
holding full scholarships is much lower. Although the financial
rewards are much more difficult to obtain in these branches,
enrollment remains high. Army ROTC, though, is much less
choosy about an applicant’s field of study.
"Army ROTC is open to students in any four-year degree
conscription, should
necessary again.”
“I do support Carter’s excluding
deserters. He at least did right in
excluding them,” added Shartel.
He emphasized that soldiers “must
listen."
“That is the basis for effectiveness
in any military organization,” he
said.
that be
The loudest chorus of objections to
amnesty seem to be those who view
the pardon as a kind of earth-shaking
precedent. If' you pardon evaders
now, they ask, what will happen if
they don’t want to go when the next
program at Penn State,” says Capt. Robert Carlson, an Army
ROTC administrator. “We have no quotas anyone who
meets the standard Army qualifications is welcome to go
through the basic and advanced programs.”
Jack is a fifth-term engineering major enrolled in the Army
ROTC program. He doesn’t hold a scholarship, although he is
about to “go on contract," which means the Army will give
him 100 dollars a month as long as he agrees to enter the Army
for three years active duty when he graduates.
“I’m in it because I think the Army has a whole lot to offer in
terms of job security, medical benefits and good pay, he says.
“At this point I’m not anticipating a career in the Army, but
I’m not ruling it out, either it’s there if I want it. Besides, the
experience I’ll get during my hitch is really valuable in itself
You get a lot more responsibility and a lot more latitude in
what you can do than in the private sector. ’ ’
The ROTC programs are not roses without thorns, though.
All of the programs make demands on the students time and
some require students to take courses in particular subjects.
"The Navy makes ROTC students in its program take two
terms of physics, two terms of calculus, a term of political
science and a term .of computer science, no matter what the
person’s major is,” Jeff says. "For the occasional non-hard
science major that goes through the program, the physics,
calculus and computer science can be pretty scary."
There are punitive duties handed out in all programs for
minor dress infractions, protocol mistakes or missing classes.
According to Rouse, the extra duties are valuable in that they
make the ROTC student more aware of how the military
works and gives him (or her) the sense of regimentation and
discipline necessary in the service. ROTC members may see
the extra duties a little differently.
“Some of the s— they make you do is really trivial and I
can’t see any value in it at all; it’s just busy work, mostly,”
Jeff says. “It’s the same type of stuff in all three ROTC
programs, as far as I know. You have to go up to Wagner
Building, in uniform, during your free time and polish some
brass cannon shell for a couple of hours or punch holes in
looseleaf paper. Diddly stuff like that.”
Responsibility and valid leadership training can be a long
time in coming. ROTC students may spend three full years in
the program before getting any real responsibility, because of
•he rigid levels upon which battalions and other operational
units are based, according to Barney.
“You spend a lot of time doing pretty insignificant things
until it’s your turn to lead,” Barney says. “Until you get some
responsibility you really don’t learn many applied military
skills! You’re just a nobody under someone’s command, just
another uniform. But I guess that’s the way it has to be not
every one caln lead at once.”
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James Hevia (11-East Asian
Studies), served in Thailand during
the war. “I don’t buy the argument
that this will set a precedent,” he
said. “Amnesty has always been
used only in special cases.”
These “special cases” go. back all
the way to the administration of
George Washington. In 1794, he
declared amnesty to the participants
of the Whiskey Rebellion.
“The New York Times” has
reported that at least 12 former
American presidents have exercised
the same sort of privilege.
Mark Peattie, an associate
professor of history teaching “War in
the Western World” this term, cited
the pardon of the confederate forces
after the American Civil War as the
greatest precedent yet for amnesty.
“There’s a massive precedent in
the Civil War," he said. “It’s sheer
foolishness to say Carter sets a
massive precedent.”
“They ended up saving American
lives,” said another veteran about the
evaders. “If they hadn't protested so
loud and turned out in such large
numbers they wouldn’t have acted as
a conscience for our country.”
The veteran, who said, "If the war
started again, I’d go back,” defends
the legality of amnesty. ,
“Carter ran on amnesty. He got a
mandate from the people to do what
he did. It was obvious more people
were for it than against it.”
One Vietnamese student said he
wasn’t bitter about amnesty.
“People willing to fight in my
country, I appreciate them. But it
was not wrong for others to leave.
You can show your loyalty for your
country in 100,000 ways,” he said.
Just as time has made people more
and more willing to comment on
amnesty, it will also heal bitter
feelings about it, said Peattie.
“Time heals all wounds. The
overall attitude will be entirely dif
ferent in 1987 or 1997,” he said.
Why?
Peattie says, “The emotions on
both sides will have subsided. Surely
none of the VFW looking back today
would say we should'have kept all
those Confederates in stockades.”
The lack of responsibility and leadership opportunitjC
through the first two years (and, sometimes, beyond) hasC
caused some attitude problems in the programs, according to>
Barney. The problems are hard to pinpoint, but appear tq£
involve apathy and a lackadaisical attitude, according
Barney. >
“To combat this, the officers have been trying to get mor&u
people involved in their units in drill teams, rifle teams;*
bands and intramurals, but. these don’t include leadership and%
responsibility, which is what we’re supposed to be learning,'l;*
Barney says. ;*
'Some of the s — they make you do £
• 4
is really trivial and I can't see any
value in it at all. . . You have to go
up to Wagner Building, in uniform, •:
during your free time and polish
some brass cannon shell for a coupler
of hours or punch holes %
in looseleaf paper.' £
Because of the military dress codes, which stress main-!';
taining “a military appearance at all times,” ROTC members/-
are among the most easily recognized members of the
body. The clean-cut, spit-and-polish image, though, may go;
only skin deep and doesn’t affect the student’s social'life,v
according to Barney.
“The idea that we are all straight-arrow right-wingers is*
totally absurd,” Jeff says. “In a group the size of ROTC there;
are all types of people with all types of political
including people who would wear their hair down to here and*
nice, scruffy beards if they could. But appearance is part of;
our job and whether we like it or not, we have to abide by the„->
rules.” 'I
“We party, the same way anyone else does we do exactly;
the same things, but maybe a little more discreetly,” he says;*
“Really, 1 we’re students like thousands of other students, we;
just chose ROTC as one of our student options because we feet*
it has a lot of advantages to offer. But we’re students, no more?
and no less, as long as we’re here."
Friday, February 11, 1977 7