The Making of a Cadet
By Blake Hurst
TARKIO, MISSOURI—It's a picture in most family scrapbooks: Dad and son at Parent's Weekend during freshman year of college, dad spreading a bit around the middle and graying at the edges, son taller and thinner, mom snapping the shot to enshrine the moment in family history. For us, there's a touch of melancholy. It's the first time we've seen Ben in his Army dress uniform. That picture made us come to grips with the commitment he's made, and the risks he has willingly chosen to face.
It only slowly dawned on us, sometime in his high school career, that Ben was an exceptional student who might not be satisfied with the state university that educated his parents, grandparents, and sisters. We encouraged his ambition, only vaguely aware of what places like Yale or the University of Chicago cost, perhaps assuming his provincial background and high school graduating class of 31 would preclude him from being accepted at those top choices. Then the acceptance letters started arriving. Yale, Rice, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and Washington University would all take him.
But none offered financial help. In a moment of truth, we made it clear that we wouldn't mortgage the farm (literally) to send him to school. So he decided to enroll in Army ROTC.
Even in our conservative small town, that's a conversation stopper. When I tell people about the decision he's made, total silence almost always follows while people digest the news. His mom lies awake at night, and I fret that I've perhaps exposed my son to combat because I wouldn't take the financial risk that $40,000 in annual tuition would entail. Compounding my guilt is the regret, felt by many in my generation, that I myself didn't serve. Did I encourage him because I hadn't fulfilled my debt to my country? Ben can't make up for my failings, nor should he try.
But the die has now been cast. Ben settled on Washington University and is enrolled in their Texts and Traditions program. He rises three times a week at 5:30 a.m. for Army physical training, and spends his weekends running around in the woods. He is learning to shoot, call in artillery fire, and coordinate small-squad infantry movements. He's also reading Plato, Aquinas, and St. Augustine, struggling with calculus, and learning Russian. He's had the expected amount of cultural shock, including one professor who informed him that rural Missouri (where we live) is full of homes with no running water and "out-of-control Christians."
Washington University experienced some of the most violent anti-war protests of the Vietnam era. One of President Clinton's famous last-minute pardons was for the man who burned the ROTC building on the campus in 1970. Ben has received a few comments while wearing his fatigues on campus, and the cadets have had to cancel at least one exercise in order to avoid an anti-Iraq-war protest on the college quadrangle. But at least the school still has an ROTC program.
It's easy to rationalize ROTC in terms of finances, career prospects, and the like. But for most of the young people who opt for it, their decision is closely linked to ideas of patriotism, honor, and duty—concepts that some Americans are too embarrassed to talk about, except for maybe 48 hours after 9/11. Ben is refreshingly independent, and has easily shed jokes by more cosmopolitan classmates about his short hair, hometown girlfriend, and the pictures of our farm on his bulletin board. But even he is uncomfortable talking about his love of country, and the obligations he feels toward America.
I know, though, that he joined ROTC not because of the money, though he justifies his decision in that way, but because it's the right and honorable thing for him to do. And I'm bursting with pride that Cadet Hurst calls me Dad.
After we took his picture, we went to the football game at Washington University. Ben was a member of the color guard, and helped present the flag as the national anthem was sung. And I cried.
Blake Hurst has written for The American Enterprise since our very first issue.
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