Academia Demonizes The Military

Michael Tremoglie, an author and ex-Philadelphia police officer, was one of several speakers featured at Accuracy in Academia’s Conservative University on Capitol Hill this week. He called college campuses the “temple of liberal orthodoxy,” when it comes to the treatment of students in the ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). Tremoglie said that the war on the ROTC has been happening for a long time and that it is “political, and nothing more than that.”

Speaking from his own experience, he discussed running away from home when he was in high school to join the military and fight in Vietnam. Although he was rejected from the military because of his age (16), he recalled the reaction of his school principal. “Why do you want to do that [join the military]?,” the principal asked him. “It is only for those who can’t make it in civilian life.”

The stereotype that “only those who cannot do anything else join the military”, Tremoglie asserts, is a view that is all over college campuses. He said that this stereotype permeates at institutions of higher education, “they [faculty and administration] have a certain idea about the military, what they do, and who they are.”

However, this image of the military, he suggested, is false. This is because “they [faculty and administration] think they know [about the military] but their entire life experience comes from books.”

Even more disheartening was the feedback he received from Vietnam vets. “You don’t want to go,” they told him. “They don’t want us to win.”

He claimed that the faculties on college campuses (and even in K-12 education, in his case) are disconnected from society, which is why, when compared to most Americans, they have such extreme opinions on the military. He commented that “there is a big difference between intelligentsia and other citizens” and the way that they view the military.

Tremoglie theorized that the origin of much of the current faculty hostility toward the military stems from the1960’s, when many of today’s senior professors were undergraduates organizing anti-war rallies. He contended that many of the current professors on college campuses are a product of the Vietnam War. He explained that these professors did not go to war; instead they continued on with their education, many of them staying in academia their entire lives. The war protests during the Vietnam War, he argued, may have contributed to the lingering stereotypes of the military in the Ivory Tower today.

For example, the frequent assertion that blacks made up a disproportionate share of the combat casualties in Vietnam is just that. “I looked it up,” Tremoglie told the audience; “Blacks made up 10 percent of the casualties and at the time also made up 10 percent of the population.”

Tremoglie added that “the lack of interest in the ROTC on campus is appalling.” Among several suggestions for improving the image of the military and bringing the ROTC back onto college campuses, Tremoglie suggested promoting intellectual diversity.

Rosemarie Capozzi is an intern with Accuracy in Academia.