Understanding History

Harvard ROTC in 1917. Harvard and the U.S. Military have a long, interconnected history. HUPSF R.O.T.C (PA 1), olvwork614474. Harvard University Archives.

Why do we study science and math? We do so to gain understanding and then apply that understanding to engineering and technology! By doing so, we improve the world. So, why not study history in the same way?

We should study history to understand how our current circumstances came to be, then use our understanding to shape the world we want. In the case of the HVAO, we should study the history of Harvard and the military, two of our nation’s oldest institutions, then shape the relationship to best serve the nation and the world now and in the future.

Ask people who have dabbled in the subject and they will tell you the relationship between Harvard and the U.S. military has primarily been positive and integrated. “The proof’s in the pudding,” they might say as they provide examples like the establishment of ROTC in 1916 and the building of monuments such as Memorial Hall, honoring the Harvard fallen of the Civil War who fought to maintain the Union.

Within months of being installed as Harvard President, Drew Gilpin Faust commented on the long relationship between Harvard and the military at an ROTC graduation in 2008. She gave an example from the American Civil War. “The 20th Massachusetts Regiment was known as the ‘Harvard Regiment,’ because so many of its officers were from this University.” [1] She also provided the example of Memorial Church and “the hundreds who died in World War I, including three Radcliffe women.” She added, “…we have since added memorials to those who sacrificed their lives in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.” In addition to Faust’s examples, the courage of 18 Medal of Honor (MOH) recipients provides testament to the willingness of Harvard alumni to serve and sacrifice. No other institution of higher learning (aside from West Point and Annapolis) has as many MOH recipients.[2]

The relationship between Harvard and the military hasn’t been completely harmonious, however. A strained relationship has existed at times. Most people can point to the broken relationship during and after the Vietnam War, but a strained relationship has existed during other periods of history as well. For example, almost no one cites the neutrality of Harvard toward military service during the mid-seventeenth century when the college prohibited service by its students in the militia and the Massachusetts Bay Colony granted an exemption from militia service to students and most alumni.

Another example occurred during World War I. When war broke out in Europe in 1914, many Harvard students took an anti-war position. In 1915, Harvard College students sent a letter to President Wilson supporting his isolationist stand.[3] They were not alone. Harvard Divinity School students petitioned Congress to oppose “any form of conscription.”[4] As the war in Europe continued and it became certain that the U.S. would enter, most of the student body, led by the Harvard Crimson and the Student Council, abandoned their isolationist position to support increased preparedness, conscription, and voluntary military training for all students.[5] With this support, Captain Constant Cordier and the Harvard Regiment organized to train 1,200 student members in 1916. It was during that same year that ROTC began at Harvard.[6]

As another example, the lead-up to World War II brought more protests as a vocal group of Harvard students tried to keep the United States out of the war. In May 1940, over 300 Harvard students petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt, imploring him to seek peace, not war.[7] In December 1940, 400 students, teachers, and workers marched on Harvard Yard shouting, “1941 shall not be 1917.”[8] When the United States went to war because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, discord faded. Harvard students and faculty got behind the war effort and the young men and women in harm’s way (including many from Harvard).

Harvard’s Vietnam War protests didn’t dissolve when the first Americans came under fire. Instead, the movement gained steam, leading to escalating protests and the expulsion of ROTC programs. Photo Credit: David Hunsberger, courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Harvard’s Vietnam War protests, however, were different. Discord didn’t dissolve when the first Americans came under fire. Instead, the movement gained steam, leading to escalating protests and the expulsion of ROTC programs. Formal barriers to integration then remained for over forty years until Army ROTC returned to campus in 2011.

Harvard’s Vietnam War protests didn’t dissolve when the first Americans came under fire. Instead, the movement gained steam, leading to escalating protests and the expulsion of ROTC programs. Photo Credit: David Hunsberger, courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

In February 2017, as Drew Gilpin Faust’s tenure as Harvard President approached its end, she pointed the way for both institutions to “set a path for the future,” where Harvard commits itself to “understand what we owe to the larger world of our nation and our society.” She made these remarks while dedicating an exhibit at the Pusey Library entitled, To Serve Better Thy Country: Four Centuries of Harvard and the Military. The exhibit highlighted the interwoven history of Harvard and the Military.[9] Since then, trends are positive. In 2019, Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow told ROTC graduates he hoped to strengthen the University’s acknowledgement of Harvard students and alumni who choose military service and to increase the number of students being commissioned in coming years.[10]

Thanks to the efforts of the HVAO, other veterans’ organizations, the Department of Defense, and Harvard leadership, things appear to be moving in the right direction. We, however, cannot take positive trends for granted. Only those acting proactively in the present make history! In the future, without studied proactivity, we could see a trend or reversion to the type of decayed relationship experienced during the Vietnam and post-Vietnam eras.

To best accomplish our goals, HVAO will act proactively. In addition to laser focus on our goals, our approach will include a focus on the history of Harvard and the military, identifying patterns and trends, successes and failures, and building the understanding needed to create the relationship we want for the institutions. In this way, we will optimally integrate our goals into both institution’s vision for today and the future.  

[1] Drew Gilpin Faust, Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony (4 June 2008) transcript available at http://archive.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/06/05/drew_fausts_remarks_at_the_harvard_rotc_commissioning_ceremony/.

[2] Paul E. Mawn, “Medal of Honor Recipients from Harvard University,” https://www.advocatesforrotc.org/harvard/HarvardMOHrecipients.pdf.

[3] Gerald M. Rosberg, “War Protest at Harvard is Not New; Pacifists Got Support in '16 and '41,” The Harvard Crimson, June 16, 1966, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1966/6/16/war-protest-at-harvard-is-not/.

[4] Rosberg.

[5] Rosberg.

[6] Rosberg.

[7] Rosberg.

[8] Rosberg.

[9] Colleen Walsh, “Honoring the Crimson Line,” The Harvard Gazette, 3 Feb 2017. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/02/honoring-the-crimson-line/.

[10] Colleen Walsh, “ROTC Students Receive their Commissions,” The Harvard Gazette, May 29, 2019, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/05/harvards-rotc-students-receive-their-commissions/.