ROTC program attracts more college students
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
With the Vietnam War relegated to the history books and a scaled-down military more closely associated with peacekeeping missions than body bags, more college students are looking at the Reserve Officer Training Corps with cool, businesslike eyes.
University of Hawai'i Army ROTC
What they see are scholarships and a hedge against unemployment.
The University of Hawai'i Army ROTC program has earned the National Order of the Founders and Patriots of America Award, which recognizes the program for placing fourth among 270 Army ROTC units nationwide in officer production.
Second Lt. Matt Sun, who recently graduated from Hawai'i Pacific University and completed Army ROTC in the spring, is starting his military career helping Hawai'i students decide whether they want to follow in his footsteps. The choice seems obvious to him.
"I tell them they can graduate in debt and start looking for a job," he said. "Or (through ROTC) they can graduate with no debt and have a guaranteed good job."
Air Force 2nd Lt. Michelle Shepard, newly commissioned through Hawai'i's Air Force ROTC program and a recent graduate of Hawaii Pacific University's nursing program, got her degree with four years of financial aid from the military. She made her decision straight out of high school.
"I was looking for stability," Shepard said. "I wanted to be taken care of, and I didn't want to graduate and be unemployed."
As soon as she gets the news of her final test results in the nursing program, Shepard will start work as a military nurse at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas. While she is settling into her career, some of her classmates will still be looking for their first jobs, the spector of college loan payments hanging over them.
Not all ROTC cadets are looking for security, said Capt. Jason Densley, who oversees enrollments for the Air Force program.
Judging from the top three careers pursued by Air Force ROTC cadets — fighter pilot, intelligence officer and investigator for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations — many join the ROTC hoping for a little excitement. Others just want to spend their lives in the military.
Erick Skinner, a political science major at the University of Hawai'i, grew enthralled by the stories told by his Air Force father and his father's co-workers. He never considered an option other than military service, he said. If his parent's had not insisted on a college education and steered him toward ROTC, he would have enlisted in the Air Force.
"They've had me since I was born," he said.
Opportunities in ROTC increase as the number of active duty officers diminishes, Densley said. And competition against the civilian sector in the past few years created a buyer's market for potential ROTC students. Densley said the quotas and hard-sell tactics sometimes used by military recruiters in other arenas are unnecessary in ROTC.
Scholarships that include tuition and living allowances, offered to most cadets for two years and to some for the full four years of college, sell themselves pretty well, he said. And it doesn't hurt when the scholarships allow the students to complete their educations in Hawai'i.
In fact, Hawai'i's Air Force detachment is the fastest growing in the country. Sun said Hawai'i's Army unit scores fourth out of 270 units nationwide for enrollment, and tops the Western region.
Despite his military status — and maybe because of it — Sun has had two civilian job offers in the past two months.
"They just say, 'Call me in two years,' " he said.
