from Wall Street Journal Opinion

Cold Welcome for Veterans on Campus

Students at elite colleges seek to undermine the values that service members signed up to defend.

By Rob Henderson
November 10, 2019

‘But don’t you ever feel like a sucker for serving?”

A fellow military veteran asked me this question a couple of years ago, when I was a senior at Yale. Like me, he had recently completed his service and was studying at a top university.

He said he was mystified, observing that the predominantly working- and middle-class people in the military swear an oath to defend with their lives the U.S. Constitution, including the First and Second amendments. Meanwhile, affluent college students regularly trash the First and seek to dismantle the Second. Are veterans being duped, he questioned, into believing they are upholding American values while the richest kids in the world—the ones being groomed for success and power—try to undermine them?

He’s not the only one who feels that way. Many veterans I know who enter college are bewildered by what they see: students from the top income decile expressing derision for the values that service members signed up to defend. Perhaps they could be forgiven for feeling like suckers.

Seeing our peers question the Constitution isn’t the only jarring experience for veterans. For many, the treatment of race on campus is a major culture shock. The military is perhaps the most meritocratic institution in the U.S. Women and men of all backgrounds come together, united in their purpose to defend this great country. The best research we have shows that women and nonwhite service members report greater job satisfaction and quality of life than do white male members. Arbitrary physical features like race and sex were treated as inconsequential because we were evaluated primarily on rank and performance. In college, however, there are clear social incentives to disparage people for their race.

I recall being stunned when one student, with a gleeful expression, bellowed to a classmate, “F— your white tears!” Other students around her snapped their fingers to express approval. One’s sex is fair game, too. For veterans trying to integrate on campus, insulting men signals coalitional solidarity with those who adhere to the dominant campus ideology. This works even, perhaps especially, if you are a white man.

The intent behind the insult matters. In the military, we exchanged insults often. It’s a form of social bonding, a way to strengthen relationships with the target of the insult. It helps to bring us together. College students also insult each other to bond socially—but not with the targets of the insults. They wish to impress the onlookers. They’re looking for bystanders to snap their fingers or share their social-media posts. The purpose is to vilify a transgressor in order to bond with observers. It’s effective.

Veterans who first serve in the military and then attend elite colleges learn to navigate both moral worlds. On campus we learn to blend in, even at the cost of feeling betrayed. We keep our love for America to ourselves. We don’t want to give veterans a bad reputation. We want to make friends. We try to understand campus protesters, to see where they’re coming from. Maybe their grievances are a bit overblown, but still, they’re young. They’re still maturing. Just like we were when we volunteered our lives for this country. Just like our friend was when he hanged himself after returning from his second deployment.

In truth, many of the rich kids at elite colleges love American values, too. But they know that loving the Constitution and its first two amendments marks one as working-class or low-status, and that being against those things codes as educated. So they rail against those values to distinguish themselves from one crowd and fit into another.

This Veterans Day we can reflect on the sacrifices made by those who volunteered to defend the United States. But let’s also find time to consider that these sacrifices were undertaken to defend values that our ruling-class-in-waiting seeks to undermine. Many students at elite colleges are duping themselves, too. They don’t realize that they are protected by the very principles they despise and the people to whom they condescend.

Mr. Henderson is a U.S. Air Force veteran and a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge.

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