Complexity

I had lunch today with a student at Houghton--let's call him D'Angelo--who is not enlisted in the ROTC program, but is taking an ROTC course for credit. (On second thought, let's call him Mark.)

He is in the course because he is an international relations major, and thinks it might be wise for him to know a bit about what makes the military tick, since his career path seems likely to intersect with military folks. (Isn't that a wonderful reason to take a course, by the way?)

His answers to some of my questions made me think that I should not try to compose my essay (see two posts below--"A second draft") with "Yes" and "No" answers. Things are more muddled. If I use any headings at all, they should include (or maybe be exclusively) "Probably" and "Probably Not".

For example, I asked Mark, "If the Houghton faculty voted to exclude ROTC from the catalog, how would you react?" He properly said that he'd like to know their reasons, but that no matter what the reasons, he would regret that some students (including one or two he knows) would not choose to come to Houghton, and would thereby be denied the chance to get the education here that might make them better informed soldiers.

Mark's response implies that whatever school the student chooses in Houghton's place is not likely to provide as good an education. It also doesn't consider that there may be students who come to Houghton and transfer because of our connection to ROTC. In any case, there's a conversation waiting to happen here, and it makes me want to write the essay to reflect the complexity. Using just YES and NO answers is too rigid.

I'm just afraid that a straight-up essay won't get read as widely, and will fail to have any noticeable impact at all.

Mark told me that the army does allow a student to complete a year of coursework (paid for by the government) and yet unenlist at the end of the year. He said the army doesn't make this easy, but that it's do-able. (He's going to hook me up with a friend of his who did this, and left Houghton immediately after unenlisting, because he could no longer afford to be here.)

But what do the ROTC students study in that first year? According to Mark, they study tactics, movement, protocol, formations, weapons, and map-reading. There are some outdoor exercises with paintball guns. I don't think this is enough to properly prepare a person for deciding upon a military career. It's the ethics that matter.

On another note, I asked about ROTC cadets carrying guns in our homecoming parade. He said they are coated in rubber and cannot fire. I replied that children don't know the difference. He said it is a little naive to try to protect children from the sight of guns, to which I responded that parades are celebratory, and when children see guns carried in them, they become normative: it's as if we're saying, our community is cool with guns, and they're simply a part of our celebratory and ceremonial life. He admitted that there was a lot to consider on even this issue alone.

So it was a good conversation. And I think anything I (or we) publish on these matters needs to be conversational, too. But it also needs to be readable and digestible and useful.