For the few Dartmouth students who decide to join the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, the program offers financial help and career opportunities, but not without sacrifice.
"I always wanted to be in the army," James Knies '94 said. "To be honest, money was involved as well."
Knies just finished six weeks of training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
He received a three year ROTC scholarship, and the Army paid for about 40 percent of his total tuition. "It helped a great deal," he said, "but it wasn't a free ride."
Students who receive commissions through ROTC must commit to eight years of military service in some combination of active and reserve duty.
In return the Army will pay up to 80 percent of Dartmouth tuition.
The day before graduation, cadets are commissioned as second lieutenants and are given command over enlisted solders when they begin service in the Army.
Students earn an Army commission either through ROTC at a military or liberal arts college or at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. More than half of the Army's officers are commissioned through ROTC.
Government Professor Emeritus Laurence Radway said there is a difference between military officers trained at service academies and those trained through ROTC.
"Academic research has shown that officers produced by ROTC are more humane and less war-mongering than those produced at West Point," he said. "Officers coming out of ROTC are a lot closer to my own peace-nik values."
Radway trained in ROTC in the 1930s at Harvard and later wrote a book about military education. At the height of the Vietnam War he led the Dartmouth faculty in their vote to issue a statement denouncing the U.S. government's involvement in that war.
But he fought against the 1969 faculty vote that discontinued ROTC. "They took it out on the military, but the military were just following orders. I fought that tooth and nail," Radway said.
Dartmouth students who enter ROTC take three hours of military classes a week as freshmen and sophomores and four during the next two years. They attend a six-week ROTC training and evaluation session, Advanced Camp, in the summer between their junior and senior years.
The ROTC instructor is Sergeant Terry Damm, who arrived at Dartmouth earlier this year when his predecessor retired from the Army.
Damm is a member of the special forces, the Army equivalent of the Navy SEALS. He trained in Germany, Britain and Belgium and conducted intelligence work in Thailand during the Vietnam War. After the Gulf War he served in northern Iraq in an Army operation to help the Kurds defend themselves against Saddam Hussein's defeated forces.
According to Damm, freshmen are taught basic skills such as first aid, communications and camouflage. Sophomores learn military history.
The third year, devoted to developing leadership potential through the vehicle of infantry tactics, is most critical.
Juniors must prepare for Advanced Camp. They fine tune their skill with an M16 rifle at the firing range in the Berry Sports Center' and lead practice infantry operations which are usually conducted in the woods behind Chase fields.
"Evaluation at ROTC camp is important to their careers," Damm said. "Evaluation of their performance weighs heavily on their requests for assignments."
Seniors study ethics and moral leadership in the military.
"ROTC provides the military with new leaders," Damm said. "It makes the student a more confident person. Even if they don't decide to continue in a military career, it has given them the ability of being a leader."
The five Dartmouth students at Fort Bragg this summer trained in the 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company of the Advanced Camp 7th Regiment. They were evaluated along with students from military institutions and enlisted soldiers, many of whom joined the Army in order to pay for college.
In the first month of camp, they received tactical field training, practicing skills such as rifle marksmanship, bayonet use, grenade throwing and navigation with a map and compass. An officer lived in the barracks with them, evaluating them around the clock.
The cadets then underwent evaluation of leadership in field tactics at the squad level, a team of ten soldiers.
Ten times a day each squad ran through hour-long simulated combat situations, such as the ambush and destruction of an enemy truck. Every member of the squad took a turn in command each day.
Knies said the cadets average less than 5 hours of sleep a night.
Knies said he never had doubts about joining the Army until this summer at ROTC camp. But he was optimistic about completing more than one obligation in the armed forces.
"I'll be doing my residency and internship in the army, maybe in Germany or somewhere else," Knies said. "At the same time I'll be paying off what I owe to the Army."
