editorial imfeim oqq
ROTC
rolls on
After a preliminary inspection, it is apparent that
ROTC has changed. In quality of instruction,
financial benefits and removal of severe restrictions,
the UNL department of Military Science has
improved immensely in the past few years.
While still well below accepted standards for
faculty experience, the ROTC level of faculty
education has increased greatly in recent years.
Currently, only a bachelor's degree is required for
instructors in the department. But within four years,
all teaching personnel will be required to have masters
degrees.
The instruction itself has changed as well. In the
past, a good deal more drilling was standard
procedure for ROTC students. Currently, only
freshmen Army ROTC cadets have marching
sessions. In place of drilling, students now take
applied physical fitness courses, including swimming
and aerobics.
In the past ROTC was a required course, taking
the place of physical education. When the ROTC
requirement was dropped, the Military Science
Department retreated within its own walls, keeping
itself apart from other instructional pursuits.
This too has changed. The department currently is
co-teaching interdepartmental courses with the
departments of history, geography, projected law and
political science in the College of Arts and Sciences.
It also shares a leadership and management course
with the College of Business Administration.
The current ROTC course grants 19 credit
hours, which often can be applied directly to college
requirements. The College of Engineering will apply
six ROTC credits to graduation, while the College of
Arts and Sciences will accept 10. This reduces the
course load students involved in the ROTC
department, must take to graduate.
In terms of financial benefits to students, ROTC
stacks up better than in the past as Army ROTC
scholarships at UNL include free tuition, fees and
books, with $100 per month spending money as an
added benefit. In order' to qualify for the
scholarships, students are judged on their grades,
scholarship, extracurricular activities and Scholastic
Achievement Test scores. Thirty-nine UNL students
. are currently on ROTC scholarships.
The fringe benefits of ROTC training have
increased considerably. Salaries for officers
graduating from ROTC have nearly tripled in the past
few years.
At the University, ROTC has seen to it that cadets
are given greater opportunities to take flight training
at government expense, receive government loans and
take travel to widespread areas of the United States.
Increased benefits, however, have not been
enought to buoy flagging national ROTC enrollments.
The Associated Press reoorted that total ROTC
enrollment dropped from 177,422 to 50,234 between
1966 and 1972. At UNL, the trend is the same. With
the pressure of the draft subsiding and emphasis
turning away from war, total enrollment has
decreased greatly.
The decrease in enrollment will probably not cause
large problems in the ROTC program. As the
American war effort lessens, fewer and fewer officers
are needed. And the benefits will probably keep
suff t numbers involved in ROTC. So ROTC is
basically secure.
This security leads one to wonder why it is not
possible to separate ROTC from the University. The
program is not in financial difficulty, nor is its
enrollment abnormally low. Such separation would
most likely not damage ROTC to a great extent.
And the reasons for such a separation are many.
Currently, the University provides the Military
Science Department with a building, a secretary, a
storeroom keeper and gives it an administrative
budget of $1,050. If ROTC were disaffiliated from
the University, UNL would receive at least a small
amount of budgetary relief, gaining a classroom and
activities building as well.
Now substantial, however, would be the gains in
correcting inequities in academic crediting caused by
ROTC credit. Currently, the credits earned in ROTC
classes are not on the level of most academic hours.
Taught by instructors with inferior academic
qualifications, the classes do not generally interrelate
with other classroom curriculum. The few exceptions
in which inter-departmental credit is given could
probably be better handled by the cooperating
department, under proven academic instructors.
All of this, avoids the moral question involved in
whether the University should be teaching the art of
war. Institutions of higher learningrgenerally address
themselves to humanitarian causes-We management .
and understanding of the homo sejbSn. To instruct
students in the destruction of man irt'this atmosphere
seems contradictory.
There is no question that there' 1$ a ' riqht and
perhaps a need for ROTC to exist. But there is no
need for it to exist and be granted academic credit
within institutions of higher learnings :
Jim Gray
Hi Leslies Of America! I'm
I Mrs.PresidenV Nixon, and
o "N. myhusbUiid'JSiaie is
Lp fmm Cleaner Ihan Clean!! y
How do you
smear clean
Dick Nixon?
. arthur
m hoppe
The Democrat! are growing Increasingly desperate and who
can blame them?
Take this transcript of a top-level conference at Democratic
headquarters in the Watergate Towers picked up the other day
by an overlooked bug.
The participants are identified in the tape only as Larry,
Gary and Frank.
Larry: I've been giving our plight a great deal of thought,
gentlemen, and there is but one way to defeat Tricky Dick,
elect Honest George and restore integrity and honor to our
country.
Frank: What's that, Larry?
Larry: A massive, nationwide, all-out smear campaign.
Gary: Great thinking, Larry I Now if we could just dig up
something like The Teapot Dome Scandal. You know, we say
Nixon's cronies have been peddling favors to some huge
conglomerate in return for millions of dollars. The public
would rise up from their television sets in righteous wrath I
Frank: Have you forgotten the ITT affair already? The public
rose up, yawned and went to bed.
Gary: What about the secret $ 1 8,000 Nixon slush fund in '52?
it annual LU5i nun uic viic pi oiuei iiy , ivuw 11 we buuiu JUSl
somehow come up with an even bigger secret slush fund . . .
Larry: What's wrong with that $350,000 in Maurice Stans'
safe? The Mexican checks? The Miami bank accounts? I'll tell
you what's wrong, nobody cared.
Gary: Maybe we need something along international lines, I've
got it! Nixon negotiates a secret deal to sell rice to the Chinese
Communists. Tipped off, his broker friends make a killing. The
farmers go broke, the price of rice shoots up and you know
what happens to Nixon.
Frank: Yeah, after the Russian grain deal he went up another
five points in the polls.
Larry: Frank's right. These big financial scandals only seem to
hurt us. Let's think of something else.
Gary: Well, there was Grover Cleveland. What if we start a
whispering campaign that Nixon bought his secretary a
Republican cloth coat in return for her favors?
Frank: Nixon and sex; Who'd believe it?
Gary: Kissinger, then, We catch him and this starlet at this
motel, see , , .
Frank: That would win the vote of every male over 40-for the
Republicans. Besides, I think Kissinger rents them from a
dating service.
Gary: Waitl Remember LBJ and the beagles? We get a picture
of Nixon picking up King Timahoe by the ears and . . .
Frank: The damned dog's bigger than he is.
Gary: (desperately): Pat's wash isn't whiter than white? Trish
suffers from ring around the collar? Or what about accusing
the White House of dirty politics? Spies? Double agents?
Buggings?
Frank: Now you've even forgotten where you are. No, it's no
good. The trouble is that the public expects businessmen to
buy favors and politicians to sell them. After all, they wheel
and deal themselves. That's probably why Nixon does so well
every time we hit him with a scandal: they identify with him.
Gary: That's itl The perfect smear campaignl To win votes for
George we start a rumor he's sold Nevada to Howard Hughes
for $500 million in unmarked bills.
Frank: With the debts we still owe? Who'd believe it?
Larry (after a long silence): Well, gentlemen, at least we've
proved one thing in this campaign.
Gary: What's that?
Larry (gloomily): There's no way on earth to smear Dick
Nixon.
Copyright Chronic! Publiihlna Co. 1972
pSg3 4
daily nebraskan
friday, October 13, 1972