Word: cadets
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Germany's nobility was largely to blame for its own decline. Holding themselves aloof from politics, business and the intellectual world, Dieoberen Zehntausend (the Top Ten Thousand), as Bismarck called the elite, devoted their lives either to hunting or to the army; when Hindenburg joined the cadet corps in 1859, 2,000 of 2,900 Prussian officers were of noble birth. However, in its emphasis on a "citizens' army," West Germany's government has even closed off this time-honored avenue for "aristocratic service...
...Science 31, which covers everything from public speaking to behavorial psychology, is considered particularly worthwhile. Nevertheless, there is a consensus that many of the textbooks are filled with so much trivia that reading is often dull and unenlightening chore. Probably a representative opinion is that of cadet David B. McIlhiney '64, who said, "A great deal of the curriculum has not been and never can be directed toward the intellectual. Yet Harvard AFROTC would greatly benefit from a more academic approach...
...voluntary activities of the unit provide a welcome means of self-expression and initiative apart from the regimented parts of the program. The unit has its own rifle, judo, drill (for those who actually like marching), and volleyball teams. The cadet newspaper Hot Air often serves as a sounding board for such theses as "Patriotism seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of one's liberal education...
Beer blasts, dinner parties, and elaborate long-distance trips to places like Cape Canaveral are not only fun, but they also promote cameraderie without which cadet functions would become more lackluster and mechanical than they often are. "The extra activities of the program," commented Peter Beck '64, "are in some respects a saving grace of the program...
...Force realizes, however, that it does not dangle enough lures to induce a sufficient number of students to join AFROTC and stay in it. At Harvard, for example, AFROTC's average of ten graduating cadets for each of the last five years is far less than the 35 to 45 cadets a year which Army and Navy programs have produced. The AFROTC's monthly allowance of $27 does not begin to compare with the Navy's Holloway Plan, which pays all costs of a naval cadet's college education. The Army's low active-duty requirement of two years...