Today we read a story datelined in San Francisco about a group of war veterans who are protesting the existence of Junior ROTC in the high schools, arguing that there should be "no more military recruitment in our schools."  At the core of their argument seemingly is an assumption that being in the military is bad for youth.  Or, at least, being in the military right now is bad for youth.  It is apparently okay to recruit for a bank or the local factory, but not for the military.  Such an argument brings up larger questions.

If it is bad for those youth to be in the military, then who should be in the military.  Or, should the United States even have a military in the first place?  If it is bad to recruit high school youth to be in the military (despite plenty of strong statistical evidence that JROTC programs in High Schools do not "recruit" or even increase the likelihood that students will enlist) then is it okay to recruit them anywhere? 

One must wonder if they would have the same feelings if we did not have troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It appears that if they believe that the particular war in which the U.S. is involved is not to their liking, then all steps must be taken to prevent anyone from enlisting in the first place.  Vilifying the military seemingly is an easy response to an unpopular war…we have seen it before…but it is the wrong target and is actually asking for something they don’t really want.

Resistance to having ROTC programs at the university level is similarly illogical and actually flies in the face of what liberal Democrats want.  Removing such programs from civilian colleges and universities would result in a more conservative group of officers than already exists.  By creating officers from our civilian institutions the young future officers will be more likely to be exposed to the liberal influences of the professorship than at any of our military service academies. We doubt if our Democratic friends are interested in an even more Republican and conservative officer corps.  Responding to a professor who argued that the University of Texas should eliminate the ROTC program, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts asked the professor if he really wanted to create a situation whereby others such as he would never have an opportunity to influence those future officers of the American military.  If liberals or Democrats want the military to better reflect their views, then they should not be arguing to remove any chance of influence.

What kind of army do they want?  Do they want an army that will only agree to fight in "good" wars and refuse to fight in "bad" wars.  Then, who gets to decide which war is "good" and which is "bad?"  The senior general or admiral?  The officers?  Or is it the decision of each individual soldier?  Does a sailor get to decide whether or not she needs to go to work that day depending on whether or not she thinks the war is worthy of her attention.  Does an airman get to decide whether or not he is going to repair an airplane that might fly a combat mission later in the day?  Do we want a military that gets to disobey the orders of the elected civilian leadership?

There are plenty of historical examples of armies that refused to obey the orders of the civilian masters.  None of those examples are good and all resulted in even worse situations for their countries and the citizens.  If the United States is going to have a military, then we want one that obeys orders.  The individual members of that military don’t get to decide.  Only the civilian leadership gets to decide and if we don’t like their decisions then we get to vote them out of office.  Spitting in the eye of the individual military person accomplishes nothing and is aimed at the wrong target.