History
The OU Army ROTC has its roots in the Student Volunteer Regiment, which was formed in 1917 as a result of the entry of the United States into the First World War. Then-University President Stratton D. Brooks approved the creation of an amateur military unit at the behest of the study body, which demanded instruction in basic military skills and tactics. The Regiment, however, lacked instructors, equipment, and formal support from the Army. Lasting only one semester, the Student Volunteer Regiment was soon supplanted by the Student Military Regiment, which was led by two retired Army officers who themselves hand-carved wooden military drill rifles.
The War Department finally granted formal support for military training at the University of Oklahoma in the fall 1918 with the creation of the Student Army Training Corps - a program designed to train students for immediate wartime service. With the abrupt end of the War, however, the program was short-lived, and it was soon replaced by the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which sought to train college-educated men for commissioned Army service.
Since then, the OU Army ROTC has continually produced Army officers - save a brief interruption during the Second World War, which was a war in which 503 OU Army ROTC alumni were killed. OU Army ROTC alumni have served in every major American war. Today, most recent graduates have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more about this topic: University Of Oklahoma Army ROTC
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)