Written by Joshua Patton,

It is rarely talked about or acknowledged, but no matter how humble they are, soldiers think about how things will be different from them once they are a bona fide “veteran.”  There’s the GI Bill, which is very nice.  There are increased rates of suicide, homelessness, and unemployment, which is downright awful.  But, the one benefit to being a veteran that rarely gets voiced is the certain level of respect that is expected from people when they interact with us.  It’s not as if we are expecting everyone to buy us drinks, pay for our dinner, and let us date their hottest child.  It is much harder to define than that.  Veterans as a group aren’t even unified on many political issues save those that care for our fraternity.  Regardless of the topic or how a veteran expects people to react to him or her, Sgt. Anthony Maschek was surely surprised when he took the stage at Columbia University to argue for the installment of a Reserve Officer Training Corps program on the campus.
 
For 42 years, Columbia University has had a ban on the military at their campus.  They do not allow recruiters nor do they offer an ROTC program.  This year, the university is holding three hearings to debate whether or not to end this ban.  It was at the second of these hearings that Sgt. Maschek took the mike.  “It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting.  There are bad men out there plotting to kill you.”  This response garnered laughs and jeers from the audience, including some calling Sgt. Maschek a racist.  Many are appalled that the students booed a man who was shot 11 times near the city of Kirkuk, the city where I served my time in Iraq. 
 
Those who are against the military’s presence on campus have varying grievances.  Pictures from the three hearings show a number of signs making varied points.  Some argued that the military unfairly targets low-income people for recruitment.  Others complain about the seemingly endless wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  Some even object to the arrival of the ROTC simply because the University and the military are not specific enough in talking about how an ROTC program would function on their campus, a legitimate question that at least deserves an answer.  So while the students complaints can’t be painted with a broad brush, I’ll say this: it takes balls to boo someone in a wheelchair.
 
To jump into the realm of speculation and inference for a moment, I do think that the criticism of Columbia and their students as “anti-military” is both presumptuous and premature.  I am fairly certain that there are percentages of the student populations at most liberal arts universities throughout the country that could be classified as anti-military.  What I think some are forgetting is that these are, in fact, just college kids.  As an adult student amongst the youth at the University of Pittsburgh, I am constantly amazed at the intellectual prowess of my younger peers and then equally amazed at their real-world naiveté.
 
When it comes to the outpouring of negative sentiments from the crowd, directed at Sgt. Maschek it wouldn’t be honest to acknowledge that what he said was inartful.  His speech was impromptu and not prepared and his first mistake was thinking that he had an audience with an open mind.  What he said, while inarguably true, sounded too much like a sound bite that Jon Stewart or Bill Maher would openly mock were it made by an elected official or TV talking-head.  But certainly Sgt. Maschek thought that by way of his experience alone, he would gain some credibility that he knew what he was talking about.  
 
Some of those in the audience may have been booing Sgt. Maschek or the content of his words, but many of them were probably just booing to hear the sounds of their own voice.  Protest is hot right now and I bet you wouldn’t have to look for very long to find a sign at those hearings making a ridiculous comparison between what those students were doing and what happened in Egypt.  They want to be part of something, to make a difference.  Again, I am speculating, but if I am at all correct, the irony here is that the military is a great way to tap into that feeling.
 
The problem is that these kids are missing the point.  The best way to change an institution is to do so from the inside.  By allowing an ROTC program on campus, people who might never have gone into the military (or for that matter received an Ivy League education) would go into the ranks and affect change there.  No one denies that the military needs smart, quality leaders and one was does not have to love war to serve their country honorably in the military.  Hey, at the very least, the military discipline provided will teach those Ivy League hooligans a little respect.