To the Editor:
I must confess I had not thought about it much or at all until last night when a friend called from Boston. We were catching up on news, comparing classes, parties and professors, when he asked me what I was going to do Tuesday night. My response was something like "I'm going to finish a paper I've been working on." There was silence and then the baffled response "You're not going out?" Without recounting the entire conversation I will come to the point: Wednesday, Nov. 11 is Veterans Day, and we have classes.
While some may have grown accustomed to Dartmouth's reluctance to participate in federal holidays, and others may see this as trivial, I assure you that to me it does not seem so. The fact that I am missing an opportunity to enjoy myself on a weeknight without worrying about my nine the next morning is not what bothers me. Rather, I am appalled by the lack of respect the administration, and by extension the College as a whole, displays for veterans by holding class on the federal holiday in their honor.
It is possible that we are attending class Wednesday because in Dartmouth's self-made culture we occasionally forget there is a world beyond Hanover. Or perhaps it is because those who run the College believe that the education of its students, the future leaders America, should take precedence over a holiday commemorating the veterans of this country ... but not over a football game. By failing to observe this holiday we do ourselves a disservice; we allow the self-made culture of Dartmouth to obfuscate the things that make it possible.
There are places throughout the United States and the world such as Yorktown, Saratoga, New Orleans, Gettysburg, Antietam, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, Pearl Harbor, Normandy and Guadacanal that provide poignant reminders of the gifts veterans have bestowed upon us. A visit to these battlefields and the cemeteries or perhaps a screening of "Saving Private Ryan" with a 70-year old veteran and his wife may serve to convey these emotions to those who do not comprehend what I am trying to say.
Prior to Monday night, I had not found myself questioning the honor of Dartmouth, for it has produced graduates of the highest moral fiber, such as Daniel Webster and C. Everett Koop. However, now I am afraid I must. We here hold our intellectual freedom more sacred than anything, yet we refuse to honor those who have fought for and in some cases died for it, and that is degradation of the highest degree.