GOOD! – ROTC RISING AGAIN – AT 9:18 P.M. ET:  An optimistic report from Fox:

After being shunned by scores of colleges across the country for more than 40 years, the U.S. Army's ROTC program is making a comeback.

Roughly 32,000 cadets are currently enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps on the university level -- a modest, yet notable, increase from previous years, says Lt. Col. Michael Indovina, chief public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Cadet Command. He said the program had 30,721 cadets a year ago and 28,489 the year before.

There are even some modest inroads among so-called "elite" schools:

Even Stanford University, which barred the military training program from its campus during the height of the Vietnam War, is considering bringing ROTC back to campus. A faculty committee, spearheaded by historian David Kennedy and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, is reportedly planning to study the possibility of welcoming the program back to the California campus.

It's still a tough fight at some of these "top" colleges.  There are leftists on the faculties, some of them leftovers from the 1960s, who will come up with any excuse to keep the military off campus.  The "don't ask, don't tell" policy is the current excuse.  If that falls, there'll be others.  But progress, nationally, is being made. 

A spokesman for the ROTC program agreed that, while many young people enter ROTC to serve their country, others may also consider the economic benefits.  "Do we have some cadets who are doing this because of the economy? Sure, but it's not something we track."

Don't knock those who look at the economic benefits.  They're part of a long and rather honorable tradition.  Early in the 20th century many young men saw the service, and the service academies, as a way up, a means of advancement.  The education at West Point attracted a young Dwight D. Eisenhower, who'd actually wanted an appointment to Annapolis.  He did pretty well for the United States.

And remember that one of the reasons the Navy had such good petty officers at the time of Pearl Harbor was the Depression.  So many men had wanted to enlist in the Navy in the thirties, for economic salvation, that the service could pick the best candidates. 

The sixties generation is fading, replaced by the 9-11 generation.  It won't be a total change – a great deal of damage needs to be repaired – but there is hope in these new cadets.

March 11, 2010