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Not every student makes a perfect ROTC candidate, but leaders of the Reserve Officers Training Course hope undergraduates won't entirely dismiss the program without first weighing its potential benefits.
Lt. Col. Michael Murphy, CMC professor of military science, says ROTC's practical and leadership training melds perfectly with the College's mission statement: leadership in the liberal arts. "Even those students who want to be in Congress shouldn't just rule us out, because they think we wouldn't fit into their plans," Murphy says. " I think we can give them a good head start on whatever it is that they want to do in life."
Since CMC's inception as a men's college in 1946, ROTC has maintained a solid presence on campus. Its first cadets were enrolled in a unit at Pomona College. By 1949, after The Department of the Army authorized a joint CMC-Pomona program, 71 CMC undergraduates participated, and the annual Military Ball at Claremont McKenna College became a significant social event.
Reasons to join ROTC were varied. Its character-building and leadership training were appealing, the wounds of World War II were still raw, and some young men, historian Kevin Starr notes in his book, Commerce and Civilization: Claremont McKenna College, the First Fifty Years, were using the program to "resume their military careers on commissioned status."
So who, then, is the ideal candidate for ROTC today? As always, Murphy says, individuals who not only initiate, but also anticipate, action. "We're looking for scholars, athletes, and leaders who like an active lifestyle, who are doing well academically, and like leadership," Murphy says. "Being in the Reserve Officers Training Course is a lot like the difference between being supervised in high school study hall, and preparing yourself for the SATs," he says. One is a guided process, the other is an internal one: being able to execute a task within a certain time, by employing learned skills and experiences.
With the exception of officer candidate school or a military academy, ROTC is also the best way for students to enter the Army as officers, Murphy says. Six students from CMC are currently in the program: three sophomores, and three juniors, and Murphy is hopeful those numbers will increase. The program also enrolls students from five local community colleges, and 12 colleges and universities, including the other Claremont Colleges.
Typically, graduating cadets are commissioned as second lieutenants and report for four months of training in whatever Army branch they've selected. "Once you're there, the Army assumes you already have the leadership skills to get the job done. The interest, at that point, is in training you in their ways," Murphy says.
After four months, unless additional training is required before deployment, officers are then assigned to units. "In the Army," says Murphy, "you're responsible for everything your unit does or fails to do, 24/7."
CMC's military science department has a wealth of information available online for students who may be considering an ROTC scholarship or leadership training. Visit the main Web site at: http://mils.claremontmckenna.edu/, or visit: http://mils.claremontmckenna.edu/faq.asp for a list of frequently asked questions.
Government major Caleb Nerstad '05 opted for ROTC as a junior. This summer, he beat out 250 other cadets to win a leadership award at a month-long Army Leadership Training Course at Fort Knox, Ky. See more on Caleb Nerstad '05.
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In his history of Claremont McKenna College, Kevin Starr wrote that, "from the start, CMC showed a strong commitment to its Army ROTC program. Dozens of CMC graduates served in the Vietnam War; three lost their lives." By 1978, CMC ranked alongside MIT and Princeton in per-capita students on ROTC scholarships, and 17 percent of its students were women.
Pictured second row, third from left, is William Crouch '63, a four-star general who, in 1994, was named commander in chief of the U.S. Army in Europe.
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