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Should public schools open their doors to military recruitment, of any type, on campus? That was the question San Francisco voters took up in 2005, when they overwhelmingly passed Proposition I, which urged the city's schools to reject military recruitment in favor of college scholarship programs. The San Francisco Unified School District responded in 2006 by beginning to phase out of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, a long-standing and well-funded recruitment instrument of the Department of Defense, which targets San Francisco students of color, often from poor families, who attend seven public high schools, while steering clear of the...

During Columbia University’s ServiceNation Presidential Forum on the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, Judy Woodruff of PBS’s “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” demonstrated that she understands as much about volunteerism as Charlie Gibson does about the Bush Doctrine. (If you want to read more, this is the second item on the page.)

CANON CITY, Colo. -- A Kent man who is an associate professor at Seattle University was arrested in connection with a variety of child sex crimes on Monday in Colorado, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Police said the arrest of Major Andrew Douglas Franz, 41, stemmed from an undercover Internet investigation by the Fremont County Combined Investigative Response Team. Police said Franz traveled from Washington to Fremont County in Colorado for the purpose of having sex with an underage girl. ...

Any Harvard student with the balls to participate in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) deserves our respect. Quite frankly, ROTC doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. For four years, cadets and midshipmen wake up obscenely early in order to trek to MIT and get yelled at by their instructors. That’s an indignity that Harvard usually reserves for accounting students. If you want to know what visceral discomfort looks like, watch a Harvard ROTC student shuffle across campus in his military uniform. Banished by the Faculty in 1969 amid a rising tide of anti-war sentiment on Harvard’s campus,...

CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan - More than 100 U.S. Marines stood at attention before four empty boots and two sets of dog tags Tuesday to honor the first Marines to die in Afghanistan since their unit's deployment last month. 1st Sgt. Luke J. Mercardante, 35, and Cpl. Kyle W. Wilks, 24, died in a roadside bomb explosion in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province on April 15, said Lt. Col. Ricky Brown, the commander of Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. Dark, overcast skies, a blustery wind and light droplets of rain reflected...

EVERETT -- Eleven years ago, Sabrina M. Weiner graduated as a valedictorian at Kamiak High School near Everett. She was a National Merit Scholar, aiming for a bright future after earning a Navy ROTC scholarship to Stanford University. Two months ago, Weiner, 27, after seven years in the active and reserve duty during which she rose to the rank of lieutenant, forfeited her career. In a rare instance involving a commissioned officer, Weiner was arrested and given a choice between a court-martial or less-than-honorable discharge after refusing to serve in Iraq. Speaking publicly for the first time about it, Weiner...

EVERETT -- Eleven years ago, Sabrina M. Weiner graduated as a valedictorian at Kamiak High School near Everett. She was a National Merit Scholar, aiming for a bright future after earning a Navy ROTC scholarship to Stanford University. Two months ago, Weiner, 27, forfeited her Navy career after seven years on active and reserve duty, during which she rose to the rank of lieutenant. In a rare instance involving a commissioned officer, Weiner was arrested and given a choice between a court-martial or less-than-honorable discharge after refusing to serve in Iraq. Speaking publicly for the first time about it, Weiner...

Ohio State University's ROTC cadets have ended the decades-long practice of combat training with mock rifles on the main campus because of public edginess in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, officials said. Since the decision was made a couple of weeks ago, tactical training with rubber replicas of an M-16 rifle has been moved indoors, or cadets have trained without rifles, said Navy Capt. Steven Noce, who heads the university's ROTC program. The tactical training, typically conducted around the ROTC building near Ohio Stadium, has generated a few calls to police from concerned people in the past year,...

As a drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, Luke Mercardante trained more than 1,200 men, turning them from civilians into Marines. Later, at Camp Lejeune, Mercardante visited the Wounded Warriors barracks and was approached by a young man who had been one of his recruits. The man told him that a lesson he learned from Mercardante at boot camp saved his life, said Mercardante's girlfriend, Kimberly Hull. The young man remembered Mercardante yelling at him, telling him not to move, Hull said. So when the time came, he didn't move, and lived.

The conference program on the sponsors’ website promises to air a “wide range of viewpoints” on what happened and why, but the list of speakers shows no range at all—everyone seems to be a proud ex-protester or at least a familiar partisan of the Left. While Todd Gitlin (formerly the president of Students for a Democratic Society, now at Columbia’s journalism school) is a sober and reflective thinker, most of his fellow speakers are far from that standard. They include Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver’s widow and a former Black Panther official; veteran activist Tom Hayden; several former members of the...

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – Nick Jackson wakes up earlier and has longer days than most freshmen at the University of Cincinnati, and once a week his clothes are selected for him. But unlike most students here, Jackson, one in about 30 cadets enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, will graduate school without debt and with a job awaiting him. “I decided to take the scholarship for financial reasons, but then once I got in here and I met everybody and I’m friends with everybody, it’s turning into something else,” said Jackson, dressed in Army camouflage as...

Dustin Bonilla and Christina Eaves of Mar Vista High's Navy Junior ROTC competed in a color guard competition SAN DIEGO – From the bleachers, all you could hear were brief responses like “Aye aye, sir!” The shouting was clearer on the football field, especially beyond the west end-zone at Patrick Henry High School. Dozens of students from 12 high schools were competing in a field meet yesterday. Each student was a cadet with the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. All wore the same Navy-issued uniform: a short-sleeved white dress shirt, black pants, black shoes and a narrow cap...

Faculty objects to receiving funding from armed forces due to 'don't ask, don't tell' policy SSU maintains an anti-discrimination policy that extends to contracts with outside entities and severed its ties to the Army after complaints from the faculty. The Army was committed to spending $15,000 on the Ron Logsdon Basketball Classic, a four-team tournament in December. The event would have been renamed the Ron Logsdon Classic presented by the U.S. Army, Athletic Director Bill Fusco said. SSU Provost Eduardo Ochoa said the administration will provide the lost funding for this year's tournament, but the athletic department will have to...

Reactions from homeowners, students lack respect for ROTC morning training Dear Editor, As the officer in charge of the Ripon ROTC program, I would like to ask the student body's assistance in the training of our Cadets. As many students have observed, our cadets conduct physical training three times a week from 6-7 in the morning. We routinely jog in formation through city streets, call cadences and train in the vicinity of the college. Most mornings, we use city roads south of Fond du Lac St. and the college campus to conduct our physical training. The ROTC program is not...

This fall, conservatives have cause to redouble our efforts in the ongoing campus-military war, for the left has recently suffered two strategic setbacks in its fight to prevent students from meeting with military recruiters and participating in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) on campus. First, thanks to the oversight of Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Department of Defense (DOD) in May proposed stringent internal guidelines for enforcing the Solomon amendment, and second, thanks to a September 2nd Circuit Court ruling, academia lost its self-proclaimed “last” legal battle seeking exemption from the Solomon amendment. For those not familiar with...

The controversial demise of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps in San Francisco schools scheduled for this spring will likely be put off for at least a year because the school district hasn't developed a promised replacement program. The expected reprieve would drag out what has already been a protracted and emotional battle over the district's 90-year tie to the military program. Still, supporters say the prospect of an extra year offers hope that JROTC could survive in San Francisco. The school board voted last November to phase out JROTC over two years because of its connection to the military,...

COLUMBIA University Presi dent Lee Bollinger yester day made some cutting crit icisms while introducing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - but that doesn't make the school's decision to offer a platform to the head of a violent terrorist state any less abject, squalid or shameless. "Abject, squalid, shameless" is how Winston Churchill described the resolution passed by Oxford University's prestigious Debating Union in 1933 - the year Adolf Hitler came to power - that "this House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country." And Columbia's event, like the 1933 Oxford resolution, sent (to quote Churchill again) a "very...

So, in the end, Monday the Iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a dressing down from the man who had invited him -- in the name of free speech, you understand -- to speak at Columbia University. Likely, by time for the speech, Columbia President Lee Bollinger had no choice other than to perfume himself against the stench from a statesman who proposes to exterminate Israel, presides over one of the world's least free regimes and may, to boot, have a secret nuclear weapons program going. Bollinger had been getting unshirted hell from reasonable people displeased -- as why wouldn't...

Columbia University has rightfully been under fire for inviting Iran's President to speak to its student body. Now Columbia's Dean is not only defending the decision, but says that Columbia would offer a platform for Hitler to come and speak if he were alive and in America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxmEGsOkEVc So, there you have Dean John Coatsworth of Columbia University was on Fox News late last week telling the world that Hitler would be invited to speak at Columbia, were he available. Wonderful. But how do you square this against the decision by Columbia to un-invite the founder of the Minutemen? How...

Chicago "homer" refs are hosing the Dallas Cowboys... Updated: 9:49 PM 09/23/07 FOX 5 in NYC, Me, 7:05am...MONDAY Updated: 8:46 PM 09/23/07 BIG THANKS to PunditReview and Dean Barnett... Updated: 8:34 PM 09/23/07 <a href="http://ads.townhall.com/accipiter/adclick/CID=000127050000000000000000/site=TOWNHALL/area=TownHall.Web.Columnists.DineshDSouza/POSITION=TOWN_SKY/AAMGEOIP=68.112.78.1"> <img src="http://media.townhall.com/townhall/townhall-logo.gif" alt="" width="160" height="600" border="0"> </a> Ahmadinejad is in, ROTC is out By Dinesh D'Souza Monday, September 24, 2007 President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University is a very open-minded guy, in his own opinion. In inviting the Iranian prime minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia, he issued this statement. "Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas...Necessarily...

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Sept. 17, 2007 — Two lieutenant colonels with the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing bring the words "once a wingman, always a wingman" to life, showing how Air Force ties transcend barriers of time and distance. "The relationships you develop while deployed will help you later in your Air Force journey. Building these bonds helps us get the mission accomplished and is what makes us the best Air Force in the world. We have a history. This is what it's all about -- and that's how we roll." Lt. Col. Kelly Goggin Proving the Air Force is getting smaller,...

FSM Contributing Editor W. Thomas Smith, Jr. offers advice to his newly graduated nephew. It’s a letter written for a young man, but all young adults – men and women – would do well to follow its 25 points.

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2007 – The nation’s leaders gathered today to recognize a group of young people taking the first step toward leading America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates commissioned 55 ROTC cadets and midshipmen today at the White House in a ceremony attended by President Bush and other political and military leaders. The new officers represent all 50 states, four territories and the District of Columbia. This is the first time a joint ROTC commissioning ceremony has been held, and the first time a defense secretary has administered the oath of commissioning. Previously,...

LANCASTER[CA] Braving the windy, chilly weather, more than 80 people came to the Lancaster Cemetery on Sunday to remember the Holocaust and the heroism of those who fought against the Nazis, including those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. "The fact that it is cold and windy and somewhat inclement is not inappropriate," said Rabbi David Hoffman of congregation Beth Knesset Bamidbar in Lancaster. "The people in the Warsaw Ghetto experienced much worse." Sunday's service of remembrance was held on the Jewish day of Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, or day for remembrance for the Holocaust and the Heroism. "We know...

A few dozen members of the Catholic Worker movement staged a protest in front of the University of Notre Dame’s administration building today, saying the university’s ROTC program contradicts Catholic teaching. “It saddens us that one of the preeminent universities is training warriors,” said the Rev. Ben Jimenez, a Catholic priest from Cleveland. The protest ended as Notre Dame police quietly pulled some of the protesters aside -- fewer than a dozen in all. The protesters were doing a re-enactment of the martyrdom of St. Marcellus, a third-century soldier who became a conscientious objector after he’d converted to Christianity. As...

Tempers flare at ROTC Rally Groups nearly come to blows outside Student Union By: Wes Rahn, Collegian Staff Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: News Approximately 30 students shouted anti-war sentiments at speakers at the Student Union yesterday to protest a student rally, held by the Republican Club. Media Credit: Cristian Gomez/Collegian Approximately 30 students shouted anti-war sentiments at speakers at the Student Union yesterday to protest a student rally, held by the Republican Club. An organized, on-campus rally in support of ROTC erupted in conflict yesterday as members of the audience shouted their anti-military sentiments at the three featured speakers. The...

Today wasn't a good day for outdoor photography, but this is the first picture of my grandson in his uniform. They grow up much too fast. He was just a baby this time last year!

I sit here, literally adrift, trying to decide if I am more aghast, offended or innured to this latest attack on my fundamental beliefs. My Son is in his Freshman year of High School. Before the School Term started he chose ROTC as one of his electives..... Not so far a stretch since both his Father and I served in the Army... as well as our Ancestors before us. I'll admit that having both been in Basic with "Rotsies" as we called them, as well as serving under a few Officers that had little else in the way of training...

"In the first place God made idiots," observed Mark Twain. "This was for practice. Then he made school boards." The San Francisco Board of Education's 4-2 vote last week to abolish the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, which has been active in the city's high schools for 90 years, tends to support his view. Why is JROTC being done away with? It isn't for lack of interest. More than 1,600 San Francisco students currently take part in its voluntary activities. "Kids love this program as if it's family," notes the San Francisco Chronicle. It is "a program that students...

Tuesday night by a vote of 4-2, the San Francisco Board of Ed banned Junior ROTC training in seven city high schools, throwing 1,600 students out of those clubs. This is a direct insult to the U.S. military and violates the civil rights, I believe, of the ROTC students. The federal government should immediately suspend all federal aid to San Francisco schools. There's no reason to ban JROTC. Nobody's required to join it. And if a student with parental approval wants to investigate a career in the military, every American school should encourage that. Obviously, the military is protecting us...

As students settle in to their classes at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., there is good news and bad on the academic front. First, the former because it will take less time than the latter, although the more positive update is not inconsiderable. “On May 20, 2006, President [Brian C.] Mitchell not only attended the ROTC commissioning ceremony, but also spoke movingly about the value of both the ROTC program and our military,” the staff of The Counterweight wrote. “While those outside of academia might see such an act as commonplace, it is anything but.” “When even Bucknell’s own course...

Here's something small but worthwhile you prolific emailers can do - write an email for a good cause. The SF School Board wants to shut down JROTC because, basically, the School Board thinks JROTC is incompatible with SF politics. They want to replace it with something typically PC. You may begin shivering now. The JROTC kids want it to stay; they have way more applicants than JROTC can take (yes, in San Francisco, we have something like 1500 kids in JROTC). There are thousands of schools on the waiting list to set up JROTC programs because of limited funds, and...

Board has plan to oust ROTC from S.F. schools Members want to cut program over 'Don't ask, Don't tell' Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, May 23, 2006 The San Francisco Board of Education appears poised to kick the military's Junior ROTC programs out of the city's public schools, saying the Pentagon's refusal to allow openly gay service members is deplorable and not in line with the school district's anti-discrimination policy. School board members are scheduled to introduce a resolution tonight outlawing the JROTC because of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule. The resolution calls that policy an "unjust,...

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2006 – President Bush today honored the memory of a graduate who died in Iraq during his commencement address at Oklahoma State University. The president noted that 27 members of this year's graduating class are also receiving their commissions as Army or Air Force officers today as graduates of the ROTC program. Bush commended the new officers for choosing to embrace public service and for following the example set by a 2002 OSU graduate, Luke James. With a wife and infant son, "Luke had the world at his feet," Bush said. Yet, he chose a life of...

When guns and schools were pals By Mike Moore Time to settle up on a bet. It started with a conversation I had in a Downtown bar a couple of weeks back. A guy tried to convince me when he'd gone to Mitchell Middle School, there was a shooting range in the basement. He saw my skeptical eyes narrow into that "How many have you had?" look. He suggested I try to confirm it. Possibly, if I'd read my buddy Chris Bennett's Glad You Asked column about another old range, I'd have believed the story right away. But the guy...

TARKIO, MISSOURI—It’s a picture in most family scrapbooks: Dad and son at Parent’s Weekend during fresh­man year of college, dad spreading a bit around the middle and graying at the edges, son taller and thinner, mom snap­ping the shot to enshrine the moment in family history. For us, there’s a touch of melancholy. It’s the first time we’ve seen Ben in his Army dress uniform. That picture made us come to grips with the commitment he’s made, and the risks he has willingly chosen to face. It only slowly dawned on us, some­time in his high school career, that Ben...

The anti-military punks are at it again. Reader Nora. A. e-mailed me photos of vandalism yesterday at UNC-Chapel Hill's ROTC armory taken by her son, an ROTC cadet on campus: This has got to stop. (Hat tip: Sister Toldjah) Via the Raleigh News and Observer: Vandals staged attacks early Wednesday on the buildings used by the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, echoing similar assaults on three Triangle recruiting stations last month. As before, vandals sprayed anti-war slogans and profanity, splashed red paint and claimed responsibility with a mass e-mail message to area media outlets....

Author Daniel J. Flynn believes that last month’s Supreme Court case of Rumsfeld vs. the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) was about the hypocrisy of higher education. “Faculty and administrators rarely have trouble accepting military money through government contracts, but have problems with students accepting military money [through service],” Flynn said at an Accuracy in Academia event called “The Ivory Tower’s War on the U.S. Military.” So the decision of the Supreme Court made the hypocrisy obvious and illegal by telling colleges and universities that they cannot continue to get federal funding while banning military recruitment on their...

One of the most egregious manifestations of academic arrogance has been the effort to ban the military from campus – specifically military recruiters and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). So many colleges and universities participated in this action that, in 1994, a law was finally passed by the Congress mandating that if a university wants to continue to receive federal funds then they have to permit the military to recruit. This law was challenged in court by several law schools. The "Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR)," a group of law schools and professors, sued the Secretary of...

One of the most egregious manifestations of academic arrogance has been the effort to ban the military from campus – specifically military recruiters and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). So many colleges and universities participated in this action that, in 1994, a law was finally passed by the Congress mandating that if a university wants to continue to receive federal funds then they have to permit the military to recruit. This law was challenged in court by several law schools. The "Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR)," a group of law schools and professors, sued the Secretary of...

In a breathtaking double standard, Yale continues to block ROTC training from its campus and argues - against the opinion of a unanimous Supreme Court - that its law school has the right to limit access by military recruiters. I vividly recall Rahmatullah's visit to The Wall Street Journal's offices in the spring of 2001. I was surprised when he defended the Taliban's brutal treatment of women - they were barred from school after age 10 and often banned from appearing in public without a husband or an older male relative. Then I was shocked when he said he hadn't...

Since the New York Times and Wall Street Journal broke the news about the admission of Taliban official Sayeed Rahmatullah Hashemi to a special student program at Yale, we’ve received numerous emails from outraged Yale Alumni. One email stood out from the rest — "I won’t give Yale one red cent this year, but maybe I will give them a red fingernail instead!" She was referring to the Taliban’s policy of pulling the fingernails off of Afghani women who dared to wear fingernail polish. Some of these women even had their thumbs sliced off as punishment. To date, Mr. Rahmatullah...

Just Breaking!!!! Supreme Court Upholds "Colleges who accept Federal Funds must allow Military Recruiters"

While most American parents can only dream of sending their kids to a first-tier university such as Harvard and Yale, a former ambassador for the oppressive and brutal Afghan Taliban is enrolled at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, even though he possesses none of the qualifications to attend such an institution for higher education. "Yale University enrolls the Taliban's former spokesman as a student, but continues to prohibit other students from organizing a Reserve Officer Training Corps chapter on campus and also seeks to deny students the right to hear from military recruiters about employment opportunities," say members of...

Yale Alumnus Responds HERNDON, VA – Yale University enrolls the Taliban’s former spokesman but continues to prohibit other Yale students from organizing a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) chapter on campus. The University also seeks to deny students the right to hear from military recruiters about employment opportunities. On February 26, the New York Times Magazine reported that Yale admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, into a non-degree program, with a chance to gain full degree status by 2006. “In some ways I’m the luckiest person in the world,” Hashemi told the Times. “I could...

If Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers was worried about how the undergraduates would greet him Wednesday night at his first scheduled event since announcing his resignation, those fears quickly were put to rest. He got a standing ovation after he walked in. He got a standing ovation before he left. A row of students with red letters painted on their chests spelled out "Larry." Sarah Bahan, 22, was wistful as she left the meeting. She had kind words to say about Summers' emphasis on hard sciences. Mark Hoadley, 21, said Summers' monotone speaking style was balanced by a "dynamic...

ESCONDIDO, CA – Standing with her fellow junior ROTC cadets, Lilia Tellefson, 15, tried not to smile as a seemingly irate Marine Corps drill instructor shouted orders in her face. For the most part, the Sweetwater High School student maintained her composure as the drill instructor inspected her uniform and removed her cap, known as a “cover” in military lingo. But she made a mistake when she put it back on. “Tell me that I have cataracts!” the drill instructor screamed at the girl, the brim of his “smokey bear” hat nearly brushing her forehead. Lilia looked bewildered. “TELL ME...

Navy Junior ROTC cadets say it’s not uncommon to be called “Nazis� or “baby killers� as they walk the hallways of Santa Fe High School. Their classmates are largely anti-military , and school officials discourage students from participating in the program, they say. “We’re not welcome here,� Cadet Marin Espinoza said. He said ROTC members are routinely harassed by other students who get especially impolite before ROTC events. On Saturday, cadets discovered what they called the latest example of that hostility. The unit’s 20 drill rifles and only Navy sword were stolen just before a drill competition in Farmington. In...

UW-MADISON STUDENTS RESPOND TO PENTAGON MONITORING: “SURVEILLANCE OF ANTIWAR ACTIVISTS MUST END NOW!” MADISON, WI – Antiwar activists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are responding to President Bush’s recent justifications for surveillance along with released Pentagon documents which label student protesters as a “threat” and news of our campus administration’s cooperation with FBI counterintelligence programs. The UW-Madison antiwar student organization, Stop the War! is hosting a press conference to defend ourselves against the Pentagon’s libelous allegations. The press conference will be immediately followed by a protest to counter recruitment by US Marines on our campus. What: Stop The...

SANTA FE (AP) - Burglars who took 20 rifles from the Santa Fe High School's ROTC program won't be able to do much with them. The ROTC program uses the rifles in drills and ceremonies, but "they're almost like props," Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson said. "There's nothing they can do to make them work again. They're really no good to anyone but the ROTC unit." The rifles were taken Saturday by someone who entered through a roof hatch, Johnson said. The burglars first tried to get in through a heating vent, leaving $2,000 in damage, he said.