ROTC is about opportunity Published Jan. 7, 2011 By Col. John M. McCain Commander, Air Force ROTC MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- It's 7:30 on a fall Tuesday morning on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While many college students are still asleep or just waking up, cadets from MIT's Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps Detachment 365 are gathering for their physical training class. Physical Training, or PT, is just one aspect of a challenging AFROTC program, and these cadets, joined by two from nearby Harvard University, are doing what thousands of their fellow cadets are also doing across the nation-competing for the opportunity to earn a commission in the U.S. Air Force. Diane Mazur, in her Oct. 24 New York Times opinion article, describes what she sees as a military drifting away from the nation it serves. She implies there is a "growing distance between civil and military America." Ms. Mazur's article could lead one to believe that military readiness itself is at stake because ROTC organizations are no longer hosted by a limited number of Ivy League or prestigious/elite schools. A look at the facts reveals a different reality. Air Force ROTC is the oldest and largest source of commissioned officers for the service. Detachments, a permanent campus presence, are located on 144 college and university campuses across the nation. Additionally, cross-town agreements are in place with more than 1,100 colleges and universities in proximity to the host detachment. What many may not realize is that AFROTC has cross-town agreements with five of the eight Ivy League schools, and Cornell University hosts an AFROTC detachment, as well as Army and Navy ROTC programs. In reality, all Ivy League and nationally recognized prestigious schools have a host or cross-town relationship with at least one of the services' ROTC programs. The military recognizes the student leadership talent resident at our elite institutions, and today we have AFROTC detachments at prestigious schools like MIT, Duke, and Notre Dame. Enrollment in AFROTC from Ivy League schools and prestigious universities currently sits at 138, with 111 of these cadets on scholarship. In fact, the Air Force Cadet of the Year for 2009, the top cadet from among cadets attending the US Air Force Academy, AFROTC, and Air Force Officer Training School, was a cadet from MIT. The Air Force embraces, and highly values, the intellectual and leadership centers of excellence in America's elite academic institutions. Air University, the organization AFROTC has been assigned to since 1952, has had over the years many luminaries of higher education on its Board of Visitors, including the presidents of Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame, UCLA, University of California-Berkeley, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia. The military's ROTC programs are all about opportunity-the opportunity to compete for a commission as an officer and to serve the nation and all that it stands for. These opportunities exist today for Ivy League and prestigious university students through on-campus detachments or robust cross-town affiliations. The more than 16,000 cadets currently enrolled in the AFROTC program come from all walks of life and all areas of the country. Increasing representation of diverse backgrounds in the military is a DOD-wide goal, and the Air Force is working hard to increase minority representation in its officer corps. Our strength lies in diversity of background, culture, thought, and experience. Commissions are earned, not given. In today's environment, which sees thousands desiring a commission via AFROTC in an Air Force with limited annual officer requirements, earning a commission is extremely competitive-the most competitive in recent history. The quality of cadets earning scholarships has never been higher. They score an average of 1,254 on their SATs, 28 on their ACTs, and rank in the top 15 percent of their high school graduating classes. The average GPA of an AFROTC graduate earning a commission as a second lieutenant is 3.18. These are statistics of which Americans should be proud. At most universities today (including Ivy League/elite universities) opportunities exist for interested young Americans to pursue an Air Force, Army, Navy, or Marine Corps commission through ROTC. The Profession of Arms is all about service to the nation. How many of those attending the nation's top academic institutions will choose to join the Profession of Arms? As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated in his Sept 29 lecture at Duke University, "a return of ROTC back to some of these campuses will not do much good without the willingness of our nation's most gifted students to step forward. Men and women such as you." The military deserves America's best and brightest, irrespective of the university supplying their education. Students at Ivy League and other prestigious schools need only step forward to enter the competition.