A recent Minneapolis Tribune opinion piece on the University of Minnesota Reserve Officer Training Corps (“Uof M Sleeps”, February 10 ’07) brought back memories of an encounter I had with the ROTC.   Or rather, Hamlet had.  I got caught in the middle, and it wasn’t pretty.

I was a young English instructor  at Bemidji State University in the late 1980’s, and the ROTC had a strong presence on campus.   Rappelling off campus buildings, marching about in their camouflage uniforms–all of it brought back images of the Vietnam protests at the University of Minnesota, a time when tear gas drifted into the libraries and ROTC was the enemy.  However, this was fifteen years later.  Now I was faculty, and some of my students were ROTC members.  They were nice kids, and I liked them despite their penchant for uniforms, endless drills (they seemed to love to take orders) and machismo puffery. Once, hanging from long rope off the library, one of them spotted me passing below and called out, “Hey Mr. Weaver, you want to try this?”

It was a clear dig at masculinity and male English professor.  I wanted to reply that I had once been a member of the University of Minnesota skydiver’s club,  but I gave a professorial wave and passed by.  It was spring and I had larger fish to fry.  I was flogging my freshmen through Hamlet , and it was a tough march.  I had tried to personalize the play (“So, what if your uncle killed your dad and married your mom?”) but that only got their attention for a day or so.   I’d had some success isolating and discussing famous lines, such as Polonius’s advise to his son, Horatio : “Give every man thine ear but few thy voice…/Neither a borrower nor a lender be/…to thine own self be true….”  And, gradually, with prodding, the students had warmed to the play, to the beauty of its language,to the breadth of its vision.  With this particular class, Hamlet came into focus a case study on the down-side of revenge.   How swords usually don’t solve the problem.

Things were going so well that I almost hated to test them on Hamlet, but final exam day came.  They appeared dutifully for the in-class essay exam, and set to work.  Watching them write, pause with faraway eyes to think, then write again–that's as good as it gets for a teacher. I decided to reward myself with a good cup of coffee.  I slipped out of the classroom and headed to the student union just across the mall.  On the wide lawn beside my classroom window, the ROTC cadets had mustered in a large circle.   Who knew what drills they were up to?  I was in a hurry and didn’t stop to ask.

A couple of minutes later  I returned with cup of coffee in hand (large, with cream, sugar and plastic lid)–and was greeted by a thunderous roar descending from the sky:  a helicopter.   A major, Blackhawk-type of chopper was landing.   The ring of ROTC cadets was there to secure the perimeter and allow the chopper to settle safely onto the lawn beside my class room.  I was stunned, then outraged; I demanded to know what was going on.

“It’s ROTC recruiting day!” the nearest cadet shouted over the noise.

Then I saw my students.  They were pressed against classroom windows, staring out at the helicopter like monkeys against zoo glass.

“You can’t land a helicopter here!”I shouted.  “There are tests going on!  Final exams!”

As if that made any difference.  I tried to shoulder my way forward–to what, wave the chopper off?–but the ring of cadets held me back.   Powerless, really angry, I watched the chopper land. As it settled onto the grass, I made a gesture that even indecisive Hamlet would have appreciated.  I launched my full cup of coffee, grendae-like, overhand, at the Blackhawk.  It soared, lid on tight, and exploded­ in a direct hit on the chopper’s windshield.  There was long moment nothing.  Everybody stared at me.  Then two large guys in helmets and serious uniforms jumped out of the chopper, ran over and grabbed me.  I began to push back, and for brief moments there was a melee’ directly in front of my classroom windows.   It was either the high point or the low point of my teaching career.

One of the pilot types shouted,“What’s the matter with you?  If that cup had gone in the intake, you’d have ruined a million dollar engine!”

Someone the crowd in that had gathered called out (no kidding, here), “No wonder we lost the Vietnam War!”

It was the perfect line to defuse the situation.  There was scattered laughter, various hoots, jeers, and the military guys, seeing the downside of their situation, let me go.  I headed—still angry– backto the classroom.  When I banged open the door, my students were bent over their desks writing as if their lives depended upon it.

News traveled fast, and BSU President TedGillette called me in for chat.  He was not happy; however, his boss, the State University System Chancellor at the time, Robert Carothers (an old English major) made it clear he thought it was funny.  And as it turned out, the ROTC chapter did not have all the permits needed to bring in a helicopter quite so close to a classroom building, so the incident was called a draw and made to go away quietly.

Good-sized maple trees now grow on that open lawn where the chopper descended.  The ROTC chapter is long gone.  My students from that spring day are now adults with kids and careers of their own.   Hamlet, last time I checked, was alive and well and hadn’t aged a day, which seems like a victory of a kind.