The Hill News

Suppose we here in the Northeast, citing the foibles and earthy prejudices of the gnarly red-clay heartlanders, decided not to send ours to Congress or the Supreme Court or any court until they became more refined, like us. Congress might then consist of senators exclusively from Baylor and Southern Methodist and the Supreme Court of justices from Liberty University and the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

That is what we have done with the refusal to allow ROTC to recruit on Ivy League campuses. To become an American military officer, you would have to go to another college. Without a doubt, it has influenced foreign policy, including our current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we in Boston suffer the most. Gone is the memory of Joshua Chamberlain, and although the tourist bus makes its first stop on Boston Common at the monument to the historic Black Civil War Regiment, Robert Gould Shaw, who died and was laid to rest with his men, is likewise lost to our collective memory. Barney Frank, Bart Simpson, Bob Dylan: This is what we are today. This is what we have become since the Vietnam period.

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