University of Virginia Library

The Army' s Duty

When the report of the Student Council
ROTC committee which advocated revocation
of credit for courses taught by the Military,
Air, and Naval Science classes was published,
one of the things that backed its credibility
was the position of the chairman of the
committee which helped to write it. That
student was Paul Bishop, a member of
Student Council and of the Army ROTC
detachment here.

It would be difficult to construe that Mr.
Bishop issued the report as a personal
vendetta against the Army ROTC program; he
has been, in fact, one of the outstanding
students in the detachment. He occupies a
position of responsibility in the student
leadership hierarchy of the Army ROTC.
Several months ago, he received a commendation
as a Distinguished Military Student, an
honor bestowed on only the top one-third of
ROTC students. Clearly, Paul Bishop had
demonstrated his qualifications as an Army
officer, and if he hadn't been involved with
the ROTC report, those qualifications would
never have been questioned.

But soon after the report was issued, he
was summoned to a meeting with Colonel
Robert C. Dart, commanding officer of the
Army ROTC detachment. The Colonel
wanted to discuss some of the views expressed
in the Student Council ROTC report.
Suddenly, Paul Bishop's "aptitude" to serve as
an officer in the United States Army was in
question. During the course of the interview,
Colonel Dart discovered that Mr. Bishop
didn't agree with some of the policies of the
government and the Army, specifically concerning
Vietnam.

A full scale hearing ensued. If Bishop had
been found "guilty" of ineptitude, he would
have been dropped from the program; he
probably would have been drafted right away.
As a result, he signed several statements to the
effect that he would support the constitution
of the United States. He refused to say that he
would support the Army's interpretation of it.
He and the Army finally agreed that he would
support the "average man's" interpretation,
whatever that is.

A hearing such as this is nothing unusual
for the Army, for it is in the nature of a
military organization to demand unswerving
loyalty and to brook no active dissent.
Colonel Dart was simply doing his duty. We
question, however, whether that duty is
consonant with the principles of intellectual
freedom which must be the bulwark of a
university. It's clear that Mr. Bishop's views
would never have been questioned had he
refrained from making public his opinions on
credit for ROTC courses.