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Alumni
and student group want an end to campus
institution
 By Vicki Ritterband
“It is a schizophrenia that runs
deep in the soul to try to teach how to love God and to kill
in the same place. ”
-Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
For Kevin Ksen ’87, Fr. Berrigan’s words perfectly
capture the inherent contradiction he sees in the presence of the Reserve
Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Holy Cross.
“I’m opposed to ROTC at Holy Cross because I went
to Holy Cross and was told that Jesus said ‘love your enemies’ and ‘turn
the other cheek,’” says Ksen (pronounced kah-SEN). “Does
ROTC fit with the mission of Holy Cross as a Catholic institution?”
Ksen, who works with inner-city teenagers at the Worcester
Youth Center, has been one of the primary catalysts and organizers behind
a movement of students and alumni trying to convince the College to eliminate
its 52-year-old Reserve Officers Training Corps program. Known as the “Holy
Cross Military-Free Network,” the group is more than 75 strong, with
its oldest members from the class of 1942 and its youngest from the current
first-year class. Ksen stresses that he had friends in ROTC when he was
a student, and his criticisms are aimed at the program, not individuals.
Holy Cross’ Naval ROTC program trains men and women
to become officers in the Navy or Marine Corps. This year, 106 midshipmen,
as the students are called, are enrolled in the four-year program. Approximately
two-thirds of them are Holy Cross students, and the rest attend Worcester
Polytechnic Institute or Worcester State College. Most receive some sort
of scholarship funding, according to Cmdr. Jo-Ann Stone, the program’s
executive officer.
Ksen says that he has heard plenty of reasons why ROTC should
stay, among them—that for some students, a ROTC scholarship is their
only ticket to college.
“Its morally unconscionable to justify ROTC’s presence
because it’s the only way they can afford college,” says Ksen. “If
that’s the case, then we have to find other ways for low- and middle-
income students to attend Holy Cross.”
The Holy Cross Military-Free Network began to coalesce this
fall, following some informal discussions Ksen had with several like-minded
alumni. They decided it was important to create a broad network of alumni
and students. Supporters were recruited through e-mails, phone calls and
mailings.
The group’s main anti-ROTC event so far has been a September
vigil outside of Hogan Campus Center, when 40 members of the network demonstrated
their opposition to ROTC through signs and flyers. Biblical quotes about
peacemaking made clear the religious underpinnings of their opposition.
The group also held a private meeting with Notre Dame theology professor,
Rev. Michael Baxter, C.S.C., to learn about the anti-ROTC campaign he is
waging at his school.
In addition, the network has also been busy this year with
other activities related to the military as well as peacemaking—including
protesting the College’s choice of Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor as the
2003 Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecturer and organizing a weekendlong memorial
to peace activist Philip Berrigan ’50. Ksen sees the group’s
work as just beginning.
“First and foremost this needs to be a deep and vibrant
discussion,” says Ksen. “None of us feel we have the entire answer.
As members of the community we need to continue to question how ROTC is
implemented on campus and the resources going into it. We have to ask the
hard questions.”
Ksen knows that the network is one in a long line of ROTC
critics, seeking to eliminate the program at Holy Cross. Some network members
have floated the idea of resurrecting a recommendation made in the 1970s:
requiring that ROTC cadets take courses in Catholic teaching on war and
peace. |
