Yale to Welcome First ROTC Unit in 40 Years
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROTC returns to Yale for the first time in 40 years.
Last year, Yale University decided to bring back both the Navy and Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps after Congress voted to allow gays to serve openly in the military.
Now, for the first time in 40 years, students from a Naval ROTC unit are among the freshmen arriving at the Ivy League campus in New Haven.
The appearance of midshipmen for classes beginning Wednesday is leading to new ties between Yale and the Naval Submarine Base 50 miles up the Connecticut shoreline.
Military officials have welcomed Yale faculty members on base tours and taken some for a ride on a nuclear-powered attack submarine.
The commanding officer of the base in Groton hopes to develop an even tighter relationship -- and perhaps inspire Yale-educated officers to pursue careers in the submarine force.
A total of 11 Yale undergraduates, including one sophomore, are enrolled in the Naval ROTC unit.
The Air Force is also opening an ROTC detachment at Yale.
ROTC left many prominent United States universities amid anti-Vietnam War sentiment and many schools kept the units from campuses over military's policy on gays, which the colleges considered discriminatory.
Units are returning after Congress repealed the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
