ROTC members discuss identity within the program

The armed forces can often seem like a far removed subject from the lives of most — especially for college students living in isolated Hanover. For the students enrolled in Dartmouth’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, however, the knowledge that they will serve as officers in the United States Army one day has shaped their view of their time at the College and beyond.

Currently, 14 students are enrolled in the College’s ROTC program, although numbers in recent years have been as high as 20. Women account for almost 50 percent of students enrolled in the College’s program — currently eight of the students are male and six are female.

Nationwide, this gender balance is not reflected, with women accounting for 15.3 percent of active-duty personnel in the U.S. military today. In recent years, women’s roles in the armed forces have expanded. With the repeal of the Direct Ground Combat Exclusion rule in January 2013, women can now be assigned to previously all-male units such as infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers and some special operations units. These units all have a primary mission of engaging in ground combat.

Captain Keith Schnell, who oversees the College’s ROTC program, said that it has become routine to have women in leadership roles in the army, especially after the decision to open up all military career fields to women.

Rachael Rhee ’16, who joined ROTC during her sophomore winter, hopes that women in leadership roles in the army will affect both the culture of the military and the societal perceptions of women.

As a woman of color, Rhee emphasized the importance of a junior officer seeing examples of females of color in positions of leadership.

“I’m here today because of those that came before me,” she said. “You have to set the example and be a resource and be a pillar of mentorship for females.”

Rhee said that while she has never felt discriminated against as a woman of color in Dartmouth’s ROTC, in the real army, “you have to earn your place every day.”

“There’s one standard, and that’s the army standard,” she added. “Everyone is held to that, no matter who you are.

Seniors spend a minimum of 10 hours per week in a combination of both physical and classroom training, while freshmen, sophomores and juniors spent between six to nine hours in the program weekly. Many ROTC members said that engagement in the program has taught them skills they otherwise would not have attained at the College.

David Berg ’16 said ROTC has been “hugely transformative.” He discovered and joined the program his freshman fall. He contracted to the Army in his sophomore fall and is now committed to eight years of service following his graduation this spring.

Rhee said there was something about her Dartmouth experience that was “not enough.” The program has given her a deeper understanding of the value of leadership and how to inspire trust and loyalty in others, she said. She contracted to the army during her junior fall.

“I needed something more challenging, more tangible than a lot of the social jousting that a lot of us do here at Dartmouth,” she said.

Morgan Corley ’18 said she started thinking about doing ROTC in her senior year of high school and reached out to the program during her freshman fall. She has not yet contracted, but plans on doing so in her junior year.

Corley added that the program has shown her a wider picture of the world outside the Dartmouth bubble.

Dartmouth’s ROTC program is less visible these days, but in the past, the program stirred controversy and made national political conflict felt in Hanover. In the early 1970s, student-led protests, which spoke out against the Vietnam War and ROTC as a military presence on campus, led to the program’s abolishment. Most notably, in 1969, about 80 students sat in Parkhurst Hall for 12 hours to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the College’s military ties and the Board of Trustees’ decision to continue supporting ROTC at the College.

Prior to its hiatus in the 1960s, almost 400 students participated in ROTC, which offered scholarships and course credit for participants. In the early 1980s, College President David McLaughlin allowed the return of Army ROTC, but the Navy and Air Force programs have not since re-emerged.

ROTC gives a scholarship to college students who want to contract to an eight-year service commitment with the Army. Chris Aguemon ’17 is a recipient of this scholarship and chose to commit early in his freshman fall because it was a strong fit for his personality and future plans, he said.

He said that the ability to be more patient has been the biggest way in which he has grown since joining the program.

“Everyone has a role and in order to fulfill your role you have to trust the people around you to fulfill their role as well,” Aguemon said. “This translates to leadership because if you’re patient with the people you’re working with they’ll be more likely to trust you and to perform better.”

Aguemon played for the College’s varsity football team his freshman and sophomore years. He said that his friendships from ROTC are very similar to the ones formed on a varsity team.

“That bond goes deeper because we realize the decisions we’re making can affect not just ourselves but also whoever we end up leading in the future,” Aguemon added.

Schnell said the commitment to serve in the army is the biggest difference between ROTC students and their peers.

“Dartmouth students have a lot of opportunities open to them,” he said. “In spite of that, they’ve chosen to commit at least three or four years of their life, if not longer, to serving their country and to doing something not a lot of other people do.”

ROTC students also identified differences between their ROTC experience and their academic experience on campus. Aguemon said that the courses in ROTC are more goal-oriented while Corley said that the atmosphere in ROTC is more structured and professional than the atmosphere of a Dartmouth classroom.

The 42-page essay, “Message to Garcia” — which has been on the Marine Corps’ Commandant’s professional reading list every year since the list began in 1989 — highlights a difference between skills taught in ROTC and those taught in the classroom. Rhee said that this essay emphasizes the necessity of “getting the job done” rather than questioning orders, which highlights a difference from the academic culture at the College.

“I feel that a lot of the time at Dartmouth, we’re constantly challenged to criticize, to ask ‘why?’ and ‘how?’” she said. “As a leader in the army, you shouldn’t be asking your superior why and how to do everything.”