Harvard's Warriors

Cambridge, Mass.

It was like a fleeting glimpse of an alternative world: the greatness of the past and what might be in the future, brought together for a moment at Harvard University last week.

It was the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month at Harvard's Memorial Church, built to commemorate students lost in the First World War. Decorated with eagles, crosses, and the sculpted form of a woman weeping over a fallen crusader, walls inscribed with the names of Harvard's war dead, the church was filled with martial music, the solemn tramp of a color guard, the echoing notes of "Taps," and the slow tolling of a bell in honor of 16 dead American heroes--Harvard's own Medal of Honor recipients, recognized as a group for the first time.

The Reverend Peter Gomes, Harvard's chaplain, addressed the gathering of generals, admirals, active-duty servicemen, cadets, and grizzled combat veterans, welcoming them to the sanctum of Harvard's illustrious military tradition. He reminded them that the university's association with service and sacrifice is older than the nation, dating back more than 350 years.

"You need to know. We have kept this day long before you appeared today," Gomes told the assembly, which included one living Medal of Honor recipient, Navy Captain Thomas Hudner, who crash-landed his fighter behind enemy lines in Korea to pull his downed wingman out of burning wreckage; others who carried the weight of having ordered men forward to their deaths; and many who had accepted those orders and lived on with the memory of what that had entailed, among them survivors of some of the bloodiest days in American military history.

"You do need to know that we are very much aware of the sacrifice of our youth for our country. This church stands in the middle of the Yard as a perpetual reminder of the sacrifice they gave," said Gomes. "We are very mindful of the past out of which we have risen here."

"So I hope you will feel welcomed into this place," he said. "It may not be where you ordinarily are but at the risk of some candor, it is where you ought to be."

Army Chief of Staff General George Casey rose to note his own father's name opposite on the plaque of Harvard alumni killed in Vietnam, and to remark, "Our freedom has been bought by the sacrifices of men and women like those we honor today. How lucky we are in this country to have men and women who not only believe in the values and ideals we stand for, but are willing to fight for them."

Then Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, a military historian whose father was wounded in combat and decorated for bravery in World War II, stood to pronounce Harvard's own heroes "the finest exemplars of all Harvard students and graduates who have served their country since its earliest days."

From the Civil War to Vietnam, she noted, "These men rallied troops when it meant almost certain death. They fought on when wounded. They volunteered for dangerous missions. They assaulted enemy positions. .  .  . We at Harvard are proud to recognize those heroes and proud to claim them as our own."

Then she added, "Let us work to ensure that the wisdom we imbue is not just wisdom of the mind but wisdom of the heart, the courage that these men represent."

They were beautiful sentiments, spoken in the presence of greatness. But they seemed oddly in tension with some of the speakers' deeds.

Gomes's greeting notwithstanding, the U.S. military is officially unwelcome in Harvard Yard, except in occasional shows of pomp and circumstance that belie the university's workaday policies and practices. Despite Faust's praise, the military is not a field in which Harvard encourages its brightest minds to contribute and test themselves.

In fact, Harvard's Reserve Officer Training Corps program was kicked off campus in the late 1960s, amid the bitterly divisive Vietnam-era antiwar protests. Today, while most of America has embraced the volunteer military that has fought a long, hard war against a proven and persistent threat, Harvard continues to hold ROTC at arm's length. The current excuse for Harvard's willingness to divorce itself from the protector of its freedoms is ostensibly the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy that was enacted by a Democratic Congress under President Clinton and remains in effect under a new Democratic Congress and administration.

There is no on-campus program to imbue the wisdom of mind or heart exemplified by Harvard's military heroes. Any students inspired to join ROTC by the examples of leadership now etched in stone at Memorial Church must rise early to take shuttle buses and subway trains to MIT and Boston University. An alumni association raises the hefty $150,000 in cross-registration fees that Harvard won't pay, although Harvard is glad to accept full tuition from the military for those same cadets who trek to the other schools three times a week from Harvard Yard.

Harvard officials declined to comment for this article. The Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization which researched the Medal of Honor history, raised the funds, and made all arrangements for the event is officially apolitical, but its members make no secret of their desire to see several steps taken by Harvard.

One is a dedicated effort to research and document Harvard's own contribution to the nation's defense, both in soldiers and in training and defense research. This might include endowing a chair. Another goal, expressed through Advocates for Harvard ROTC, is the full restoration and funding of ROTC at Harvard.

Yet another is a formal effort--much like Ivy League outreach to minorities and athletes--to recruit not only ROTC candidates but also returning veterans, whom the university is already seeking to attract with a "Yellow Ribbon" scholarship program. Some Harvard alumni would like to see veteran status and military values become sought-after qualities for the enrichment of everyone's college experience.

Tom Reardon, chairman of the Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization, expressed some sympathy for Faust, noting that as president of the university, she is a political creature and may be limited by powerful faculty factions, holding on in varying degrees to 1960s antiwar ideals or acting on gay rights concerns. But he and others say policy objections to a military governed by elected civilian leaders have sharply limited Harvard's ability to contribute to the leadership of one of the nation's vital fields in a dangerous world.

"It's bad for the university not to have this exposure," said 1976 Harvard alum Michael Segal, a neuro-logist who is actively pushing for ROTC, adding, "It's bad for the military as well, not to have access to the best universities."

Any of Harvard's heroes, and any of the combat veterans in the audience, know far better than most people that what must sometimes be done in life can be counterintuitive and terrifying in the execution, and heart-wrenching and embittering in the aftermath. This is many orders of magnitude above the level of intensity one experiences in academia or politics. But men and women have given themselves to it these four centuries past because it contributed to the greater good, and they knew that without it neither our nation nor Harvard University could be what they are today.

So last week's reverent welcoming of military values in Harvard Yard may have seemed like a rare moment of clarity. But it may also have been history in the making. For the nation's oldest university, founded in 1636, it may possibly have been a sign of maturation in progress, an opportunity taken to grasp the fullest measure of what it means to be a leader.

As retired Navy Captain Paul Mawn, a 1963 Harvard graduate, observed of war, "There is no greater crucible of leadership."

Jules Crittenden is a city editor at the Boston Herald.