Harvard President Salutes Newly Commissioned Military Officers

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For a little less than an hour yesterday, Harvard dedicated itself to honoring those graduates who have opted to serve America as members of the military. During this time, a visitor to the Yard could almost imagine it being commencement week before the onset of full-blown anti-military academic activism that began blossoming during the Vietnam War and has never been fully exorcised.

Guests, alumni, dignitaries, and participants in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program assembled on the steps of Memorial Church, which displays the names of graduates who fell in the First or Second World Wars. Naval officers brandished their dress white uniforms. The U.S. Air Force Band of Liberty performed the official songs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Newly commissioned officers swore oaths to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." The sound of hooting and applause carried through Harvard Yard as each received his or her first official salute.

A patriotic address from the university's president, Drew Gilpin Faust, punctuated the ceremony. Ms. Faust's first appearance as president at a commissioning ceremony was highly anticipated. Harvard, after all, doesn't host its own ROTC program. Interested students, along with those from Tufts, Wellesley, and three other schools, join the Paul Revere Battalion housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The existence of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays and lesbians is Harvard's stated reason for keeping the program at arm's length and is an object of fury among the school's arts and sciences faculty members, the same group that helped show the school's last president, Lawrence Summers, the door.

Yesterday, Ms. Faust, a historian by training whose most recent book is "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War," focused her remarks on Harvard's considerable military tradition. She proudly recited facts that have resided recently mostly in the minds of history buffs and military enthusiasts. She explained how Harvard built Memorial Hall to honor its 176 graduates killed fighting for the Union in the Civil War. She cited Robert Gould Shaw, who fell leading the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, the famous black unit immortalized in the film "Glory." She pointed out that three Radcliffe graduates died in World War I. And she paid tribute to those who serve today.

"Harvard students and graduates still serve as leaders in the nation's military, still exhibiting courage and self-sacrifice in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world," Ms. Faust said. "I celebrate you on this important day as you join these traditions."

Some feared before the speech that she might engage in a full-throated denunciation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her comments came in a somewhat vague, nuanced, and respectful fashion that left Harvard's most passionate advocates of military service happy. If it was a speech that seemed to tread a careful line, she likely had her outspoken predecessor in mind. Still, the speech seemed brave, at least in the context of a hyper-sensitive campus where the slightest praise of America's military can be toxic.

"I wish that there were more of you," Ms. Faust said speaking to the five officers receiving their commissions. "I believe that every Harvard student should have the opportunity to serve in the military as you do and as those honored in the past have done." She also spoke at length about the role the meritocracies of Harvard and the military have played in forging African-Americans, women, and immigrants as citizens and opening up American life to them.

The chairman of the Advocates for Harvard ROTC, Paul Mawn, welcomed Ms. Faust's tone. "It was a motivating speech... There was nothing in it I took any offense in," said Mr. Mawn, a 1963 graduate of Harvard who served as a captain in the Navy. A retired Navy commander who fought in the battles of Okinawa, Guadalcanal, and Leyte Gulf, Richard Bennink, went further, saying, "it sounds like she wants ROTC back on campus."

The ceremony marked the commissioning of five of Harvard's graduates. Two are joining the Army - Second Lieutenant Jason Scherer and J. Danielle Williams — and both of them have siblings currently serving in the military. Ensign John Reed will begin Naval pilot training in Pensacola, Florida. His Air Force counterpart, Second Lieutenant Michael Arth, will also train to become a pilot. The fifth, Second Lieutenant Roberto Guerra of Queens, is graduating from Harvard's Extension School. He will go to the Space and Missile School at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

In the conclusion of Ms. Faust's remarks she picked up on a statement of Thomas Jefferson's which envisioned "a national aristocracy of talent 'without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance.'" One would hope that future ceremonies marking the military achievements at America's most elite liberal arts institutions could likewise be welcomed without condition.