Starbuck,

The Army's evisceration of advanced civil schooling (ACS) starts happened about a full decade before 9/11. During the drawdown, we slashed and burned positions in the institutional Army and, if I recall, cut ACS starts by about 75% in the early '90s. Yes, GEN Petraeus, Andrew Bacevich and even GEN Odierno (M.S. from NC State) prospered greatly under the very forward-thinking ACS policies of the 1970s and 80s.

In the 90's we migrated to the idea that "muddy boots" MTOE experience trumped all else and ACS was limited to folks enroute to teach at USMA and certain Functional Areas (e.g. ORSA, FAO, etc.).

LTC Nagl was an anomaly because he was a Rhodes Scholar and was able to complete his graduate work in England between USMA and entering the operational Army.

There are some EXCELLENT online graduate programs. The MBA from Penn State is well regarded and Syracuse has a raft of quality programs.

I would say that Army-funded grad school starts for CPTs and MAJs are the best they've been in almost 20 years.

A lot of Online programs are very good, many are hands on and involve going to the school for two to three week seminars, a ton of reading and a thesis, the only thing you do online are discussion boards. I would hold what seems like a bit of a "snob" view back until you check them all out, don't associate Phoenix and some of the others with places like Norwich, Harvard, etc..that also do online courses.

The ban is in place from a hangover from Vietnam, I went to see a buddy in Cambridge and the whole time the protesters were holding signs that had NOTHING to do with the Military's "Don't ask, Don't Tell". If they remove the ban, that was ordered by Congress, they will come up with another reason to keep them off, the DADT is a BS reason why they do not have ROTC. If they get Gov't funds, they should open up for ROTC and the whole having to go to BU or MIT for classes is a bit of joke when guys are serving there country. DADT is a red herring thrown out by the Profs and Administration at those schools even though the ban on ROTC programs were started in protest to the Vietnam War and is used to keep the military off campuses to this day.

After reading "The Gamble" I was really impressed by how Petraeus had handled the situation in Iraq, and when I found out that he would be doing the ROTC commencement at Harvard, I asked off from work to listen. This has been the first time that an ROTC ceremony had taken place in Harvard Yard for some time. Not only that, the president of the university (forget her name) was on hand, and spoke highly of the need for a "scholar soldier". Harvard is now making available a large amount of money for veterans who would like to further their education at Harvard. This is pretty big.

Well, or maybe it's not such an issue: this is a place I've disliked Ricks' "expand ROTC" concept.

Went to Columbia and there's no Navy ROTC for you in New York? Oh well. GO to an Army recruiter, get commissioned. No problem. For about two years you'll be a little behind your ROTC colleagues and you'll always be behind them on D&C which, guess what, you don't do. If you want to serve you can serve. There's even a lot of college loan repayment available though I confess I'm not so hip about it (and am not sure I like that either for different reasons).

So a paucity of ROTC need not be such a big worry; a paucity of interest in service in some populations is.

How would expanded ROTC programs hurt? Tell me how having ANY interaction with the military would hurt at our state or private institutions? Survey after survery of troops say a large reason they joined was a positive interaction with a member of the military who was a friend, family member, or friend of the family, etc...so how would it hurt to expand them? ROTC has been banned form a lot of campuses across the US post-Vietnam, nothing to do with DADT. I was born and raised in the Greater Boston area, the main reason ROTC gets dropped is due to a harsh Anti-Military attitude among the staff at schools. Go visit UMass-Amherst, Amherst, Williams, etc..heck, even UMass-Lowell had many Anti-Military Profs. and they had a ROTC program too just like UMass-Amherst. Most of the animosity towards ROTC stems from Anti-Military feeling, period, nothing to do with DADT. You can honestly feel the animosity when you are on some of the campuses. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I think DADT should be dropped too but to think that ROTC has been dropped form so many schools due to anything else but money and anti-military feelings among the staff at those schools is just not looking at thing realistically. When I see a protest at UMass-Amherst calling soldiers "killers'', when I see protestors at Harvard holding signs against "The Military Industrial Complex" or "War Machine" I am going to guess that DADT is wayyyy down on the concern list.

Eric, you may have visited Cambridge once long ago, but I've spent most of my life there, and I'm going to say that I (and Ricks?) know the Harvard campus way better.

Did anti-Vietnam sentiment lead to the purging of ROTC? Yeah, probably. But I'm one of a number of people who have voted to keep ROTC off campus, and let me tell you: we voted to continue that ban because of the discrimination against gays. I'm not hypothesizing what our motives were, I' m telling you, because I'm one of the people who made that choice. I was privy to the statements of people who thought ROTC should be kept off of campus, and that was the argument that was made, and never once did I hear someone saying that military service was somehow unworthy of Harvard grads: in fact, never once have I heard a Harvard friend say that.

If what you're saying is true, though, and those places are just so reflexively and thoroughly anti-military, than expanding ROTC there isn't going ot get you anything anyway, no? I've no question it would be more entertaining to make the problem here something about the ignorance of the good people of Boston, but I don't think that's it.

I grew up in Boston, I used to hang out and visit the "Yard" all the time because I had friends there and did the same at UMass-Amherst and Amherst, went to school at UML, so I totally disagree with you and if you live there right now, Cambridge is hardly a place of intellectual diversity. It is does not matter if the campus is anti-military, most of it comes from the staff, not the students and most of the students antipathy towards the military is via lack of interaction and false premises based on ignorance. If you voted to keep the ROTC off campus do to the DADT, that was a simple and silly reason, Congress made that call, not the military and I also find it funny since I am sure you did not vote to end any DoD funding to the school for other areas.

I grew up in Boston, I used to hang out and visit the "Yard" all the time because I had friends there and did the same at UMass-Amherst and Amherst, went to school at UML, so I totally disagree with you and if you live there right now, Cambridge is hardly a place of intellectual diversity. It is does not matter if the campus is anti-military, most of it comes from the staff, not the students and most of the students antipathy towards the military is via lack of interaction and false premises based on ignorance. If you voted to keep the ROTC off campus due to the DADT, that was a simple and silly reason, Congress made that call, not the military and I would ask, did you also vote to end funding from the DoD and Gov't for other things at the school? What is your job there that you have that kind of influence?

Ugh, forgive typos and what not, tried to edit and double clicked it. :)

Oh, sure, IRR, you bet, I think you're right.

Drop those ROTC programs and you don't get more officers, and the senior leadership is of course going to be ROTC-Nazi biased for the same reason they're going to have a USMA bias -- that's where they're from. Army requires a substantial institutional change to emphasize direct commission.

I just argue (1) that that institutional change is very much worth making and in fact will benefit Army in other ways -- like that post-collegiate work experience you reference, and (2) that ROTC's on campus presence or absence is probably not a significant factor for those Columbia graduates who feel like serving in uniform, so you are overstating the problem (although there are a lot of schools in New York where I agree the presence of people in uniform might have an influence, so it's not a wash.)

Actually I have slightly different issues with OCS grads and think there might be a few too many, but again it's more to do with the idea that I'd like to see more of those NCOs begin civilian careers (in places like Cambridge?) when they decide to leave the enlisted ranks, and more officers coming in from outside the armed forces, so I agree with the Reno premise on that front if perhaps for other reasons.

KK, you ignore a real problem, most of the people in those areas in and around so called elite schools have never had any interaction with the military, so, again, how would it hurt to expand ROTC? The number one reason, as I cited earlier, for people joining the military is due to a positive interaction with someone in the military, so how does expanding the ROTC in those areas hurt?
Also, many Ivy Schools do have ROTC programs, why do they not seem to have a problem with it and yet Harvard and the other schools do and I would wager a months pay that once the DADT is dropped that ROTC will not be "welcomed" back on campus. DADT is a smoke screen for not having ROTC, I am sure that you voted against it for that reason, I have no doubt but I also quite sure, having grown up and lived in the Boston area, attending school in the area as well that most will vote against it again once DADT is dropped.