I enjoyed reading my close friend John Secondi ’66’s May 1970 letter again (From PAW’s Pages, Dec. 3), which encouraged Princeton men to welcome the 1969 decision to admit women as undergraduates. Resistance to change dominated then and now. At a memorial service for John 15 years later, friends and former patients positively influenced by his too-short life filled a large church in the middle of Manhattan. He would be pleased to know his eloquent words are still having an impact.
John’s letter was printed the month nationwide protests against the Vietnam War began, ROTC offices at Princeton were firebombed, our faculty voted to eliminate ROTC, and, as a young Air Force officer, I was invited to speak to Princeton’s last Air Force ROTC cadets. The main thrust of my advice: It is much better to try to influence important decisions from within a big organization than to be a protester on the sidelines looking in. Princeton’s ROTC programs gave us the choice to be officers in any service; the Air Force allowed me to focus on architecture and facility planning. While Princeton still had 113 ROTC cadets in May 1970, disbanding ROTC eliminated the choice of a military career “in the nation’s service and the service of all nations.”
I hope the “educated men and women” who now make Princeton decisions realize that military service, even during unpopular wars, is one way to achieve the motto I have always been so proud to embrace.