SmallGovTimes.com

By: Lance Thompson | Published on 04/21/08    

Highlighting another reason for young people to carefully choose their institutions of higher education, US News and World Report notes the scarcity of military history on college campuses ("Why Don’t More Colleges Teach Military History?" by Justin Ewers, posted at usnews.com on 3 April 2008). The number of colleges that offer military history courses is extremely low, and the subject is growing more rare as time goes on.

Colleges and universities have adopted a take-no-prisoners approach to eradicating military history–in fact any military presence–from their campuses since the late 1960's. The few exceptions include the service academies, and prominent schools in the Midwest and South such as Purdue, Kansas State and Southern Mississippi. But in most institutions, military history is treated with the same disdain that is usually reserved for Christians and global warming skeptics.

The scarcity of military history courses is no accident or coincidence. The liberal agenda of academia will not admit that war and military affairs have any effect on history, when, in fact, they are prime movers in the progress of mankind. Most colleges have waged a steady campaign to evict recruiters, ROTC programs, and other military displays from campuses. Meanwhile, terrorist sponsor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is welcomed as a speaker at Columbia University, and anti-military rallies are regular events on campuses from coast to coast.

If military topics are treated on college campuses at all, they are usually part of agenda-driven courses, concentrating on American abuses of military power, American wartime propaganda, or spurious parallels between American military failures and the current conflict. The courses in which the military is studied at most campuses always have an anti-military point of view, and are never taught by anyone with military experience, even though career military officers earn advanced degrees at a rate competitive with that of civilians in comparable leadership positions in private industry.

A college student would be hard pressed to find a course that credits the Royal Navy for suppressing piracy, establishing safe world trade, and guaranteeing the rule of law throughout the world for at least two centuries. Countless college courses will warn of the evils of the military-industrial complex, but few will credit the arsenal of democracy for supplying the tools that defeated the Axis enemy in World War II. Moral equivalence between the United States and the Soviet Union is a matter of faith in most college courses, but the fall of the Soviet Union is never attributed to the rearming of America under Ronald Reagan. It would take a very diligent student indeed to find a college course that recognizes the American military as the greatest force for defending freedom in the world’s history.

The military has contributed to great advances in medicine (British army doctor Ronald Ross won a Nobel Prize when he discovered that mosquitoes were agents for the spread of malaria), transportation (military needs inspired networks from Roman roads to the American highway system), and social change (Truman’s executive order to integrate the military in 1948 set the example for and preceded by decades the integration of American civilian society).

Our universities elbow each other aside with claims of being the breeding grounds of tomorrow’s leaders. But leadership finds its purest embodiment in uniform. The study of military history is nothing if not the detailed examination of leadership under pressure. From the loftiest admiral to the grimiest squad leader, the experience of war reveals the character necessary to inspire and lead people in great endeavors. Look at our presidential candidates in recent years. Every race since World War II has been between veterans, some with distinguished combat records. The only exceptions are Thomas E. Dewey (defeated by Harry S. Truman), Adlai Stevenson (defeated by Dwight Eisenhower twice) who worked as a civilian for Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox during World War II, and Bill Clinton (a two-term president), who was never in military service. Of the current presidential contenders, John McCain is a Vietnam veteran, Hillary Clinton claims solidarity with the military to the point of manufacturing courage-under-fire memories, and Barack Obama has only the most tenuous grasp of military matters. Also running this November in Congressional districts across the country will be seventeen veterans of the current conflict.

Wars and the military people who wage them change the fates of nations, decide the future of mankind, and identify the leaders of our future. Colleges and universities which ignore or denigrate military history are denying their students a fundamental understanding of how the world works. Graduates ignorant of military history will be hobbled by cavernous voids in their understanding of history, politics, and geography. They will lack insight into the human character–its dark traits of cowardice, aggression, and cruelty, and its higher attributes of courage, sacrifice and honor.

Justin Ewers points out in his article that while college courses in military history are on the decline, the market for military history books, tours, lectures, videos and simulation games continues to grow. The free market is a more reliable indicator of public interest than the insulated views and limited choices offered by academics. But the free market also applies to higher education. Because of the sacrifices of our military, every Americans is free to attend the college of his or her choice. Let us urge college-bound young people to choose a college which studies, reveres, and honors that sacrifice.

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