Indiana University’s top administrators gathered last week in Franklin Hall to celebrate the Army ROTC program. IU’s outfit was presented with the 2016 General Douglas MacArthur Award, marking it as one of the top eight programs in the country.
It was a fitting accomplishment in what is officially the program’s 100th year at IU, but there were times during that history when military affiliation was all but condemned on the Bloomington campus.
John Summerlot, director of Veterans Support Services at IU, said he knows university employees who don’t tell people they served.
“People don’t talk about it, they don’t share it, because if you ask them, they’re like, ‘Well, you know that wasn’t something you told people 20 years ago,’” he said.
Protests against the Vietnam War and the military draft in the 1960s, followed by outrage against the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding sexual orientation in the 1990s, often created an unwelcome environment for anyone affiliated with the armed services. Things changed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when people began to mentally separate the soldier from the war. That shift resulted in a campus where military service is celebrated and honored, much as it was a century ago.
A long tradition
The National Defense Act of 1916 established the Reserve Officer Training Corps. IU’s ROTC program was officially created the following year, Summerlot said.
But officer training in Bloomington dates back to 1840 and a math professor named Jacob Ammen. The West Point alumnus established the university’s first elective course, a military science class.
During the Civil War, there was a break in the program as students trained with the local militia.