While the Pentagon’s decision last month to lift its ban on women serving in combat has garnered national attention, the announcement will also directly affect the female cadets of Stanford’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).
“We’ve done a lot there. We haven’t done it all well, but we should be proud of what we have done,” former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry M.A. ’94 said during his closing assessment of the United States’ role in Afghanistan. Eikenberry spoke to approximately 140 attendees about the transition to Afghan sovereignty in the Central Asian state Monday in Encina Hall’s Bechtel Conference Center.
Nevertheless, the University’s original goal of bolstering civil-military engagement can and should push forward through other means for the time being. Greater participation in ROTC, if it is to come, will have to follow other measures.
But now, as the debate over the status of gay service members heats up again, polls for the first time suggest public support for a more open policy. And on Tuesday, a new Pentagon study reported the risk to the military’s effectiveness by repealing the policy is low.