Harvard ROTC

[sealion]

Long-ish article relating the varied experiences of being Harvard and Army from a female perspective.

Waterman woke up two hours ago to catch the 6:20 a.m. shuttle to MIT. She didn’t eat breakfast, just put on her camouflage uniform and combat boots and headed out the door. Harvard’s seven-minute rule doesn’t apply to ROTC. When you’re in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, there are no excuses for being late.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512125

She leaves her combat boots outside the door next to her pack, which is stuffed with a sleeping bag, rations, bulletproof Kevlar helmet, compass, digging tool—everything a solider needs to survive.

Inside her room, Waterman changes for class. She lets down her blonde hair from the tight bun required by army regulations. Since she’s not running late, she puts on pearls and a pink dress. Bronzer, mascara, a delicate sheen of lip gloss, and she’s ready to start her academic day. It’s 9:45 a.m. Most of her classmates are just waking up.

I admire these students who choose to serve after graduation. They delay entry to grad school and lucrative careers.

 

[sealion]

In The Crimson today

A Crimson Call of Duty: Student Soldiers

By ADITI BALAKRISHNA

Crimson Staff Writer

The women got out of their cars, separated from the men, and lined up outside the enclosed hut. They held their arms out and turned around as they were patted down—a routine their young children playfully imitated—and their purses and bags were examined.

It was September 2005. As most Harvard students donned sweatshirts and hurried to their first classes of the year, Tayla C. Havice ’10 was searching female Iraqis for weapons at a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Fallujah clad in full desert camouflage (flack jacket and two firearms included).

“One of my first days, I went to search a woman, and she started crying. My search partner—who was more experienced—[said] just take of your helmet and show her your hair,” Havice said. When Havice removed her Kevlar helmet to reveal her sweat-soaked bun, the woman “immediately sort of relaxed,” Havice said.

Havice enrolled at the College in 2001, but she left Cambridge to join the Marine Corps following her freshman year.

It was right after Sept. 11, which really gives a sense of purpose for my whole generation of the military,” Havice saidQUOTE].

Back at Harvard, Havice said that the fact that students join ROTC “never ceases to amaze” her.

“They’re sitting here in college, looking at their job options, and the salary gap is pretty impressive between a military officer and the companies that they’d be looking at,” Havice said. “And they’re sitting here choosing the military for love of country.”

Joseph S. Linhart ’03 said he fancied himself a “modern day Thucydides” during his year-long deployment in Iraq, keeping a journal of his life between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Linhart said that people may consider Harvard incompatible with the military—that those who enter the service are “wasting their talent.” But he characterized the institution-building process as “academic,” adding that people often think of the military as a “bunch of dumb linemen running into each other,” when in fact, “it’s a very cerebral and complicated game.”

In Diyara, Linhart worked to construct a town government—using only a bit of creativity and what he had learned in Government 20: “Introduction to Comparative Politics” with professor Steven R. Levitsky. Linhart said that Levitsky espoused the importance of institution building in creating lasting political systems throughout his class.

Peter H. Brooks ’06, who is still in Iraq with the Marines, wrote in an e-mail that at this point in the war, much of the military experience is in the peacekeeping and humanitarian realms, requiring some political and cultural sensitivity that Harvard has helped him gain.

“In this stage of the war where most people are innocent and interested in just going about their daily lives, Harvard helped me appreciate and respect the concerns of locals,” Brooks wrote. “It also meant I got a lot of flack from my Marines (my call-sign was Crimson6).”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522606

Havice is currently MCROTC at Harvard.

Brooks was MCROTC.

From the photo I can't tell which branch Linhart is Maybe someone can help me there.

 

[bruno]

"Linhart said he signed his contract with the Army on March 20, 2003: the day American soldiers invaded Iraq. "