We’re often asked by civilians, "How’s it really going over there?" and "How long will this war last?"
Clearly, the war on terror will last years with more challenges ahead. Despite the daily news about the war, which is now in its sixth year, we’re optimistic about the future for one major reason: We’ve had a sufficient number of young people of character, commitment and courage volunteering to serve our country in its hour of need, especially here in Houston.
And many of those young people, we’re pleased to say, are enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. With our programs now united under the newly created Houston Corps of Cadets, ROTC’s future here is more promising than ever.
The Houston Corps of Cadets was recently inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at UH. This corps, the first in the nation to be named after a major city, will bring many benefits to Houston and the entire nation, especially during this time of war.
The Houston Corps of Cadets is the official association of Air Force, Army and Navy/Marine ROTC programs at the collegiate level. For the first time in the more than 60-year history of ROTC in Houston, these programs will be working closely together to coordinate our many activities, to support each other and to provide even greater benefits to our cadets, midshipmen and our community.
The Air Force and Army ROTC programs are hosted by UH while the Navy/Marine ROTC program is hosted by Rice University.
We are already one of the largest corps in the nation – the second largest corps in Texas – and there is no reason a Corps of Cadets named after the nation’s fourth-largest city can’t rival Texas A’M’s Corps within the next five to seven years.
Key tasks of the new Houston Corps of Cadets: teaching all ROTC cadets and midshipmen the importance of joint operations, or the ability of two or more military services to work seamlessly with each other; coordinating joint events including "Jog with the Troops to Support the Troops" three-mile runs; and guest speaker and panel discussions.
We need to point out that the very essence of the Houston Corps involves the ultimate form of community service – volunteering to serve in the military during wartime.
A key reason for our impressive growth has been the tremendous support we have received in Houston, especially from the higher education community. This support is equally impressive since there are still some colleges in our country that do not fully support ROTC by not allowing cadets to meet on their campuses, not giving course credit for the 20 hours of rigorous ROTC academic classes and not advertising ROTC on their Web sites or course catalogs.
We’ve heard much in the news about unequal sacrifice and how less than 1 percent of our population has been actually making sacrifices since 9/11.
That’s why another crucial challenge for the Houston Corps involves establishing a local scholarship endowment to complement federal ROTC dollars.
We have many young people who want to become officers in the world’s greatest military but cannot because they can’t afford college tuition. We are losing quality students each year because of this. Only 40 percent of our cadets receive federal ROTC scholarship funds.
The Houston Corps of Cadets is committed to correcting this growing inequity, at least in Houston, and we’re hopeful that the community will support us in this. Any student who wants to become an officer should not be denied this dream because of financial need, especially during wartime.
Thank you, Houston, for supporting the troops, especially ROTC.
Col. Phil Bossert, Capt. Dave Murray and Lt. Col. Tony Landry are commanders of the Air Force, Navy/Marine, and Army ROTC programs, respectively, in Houston. Lt. Ben Col. Copeland is the executive officer for the Navy/Marine ROTC program.
