Reasons to serve

About two dozen seniors in the Notre Dame Army ROTC program were impressed with the mealtime rituals at the United States Military Academy at West Point: the corps formations with drums and bugle, the historic Washington Hall that reminds visitors of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, and the efficiency and precision of feeding 4,000 cadets in a matter of minutes.

But when the Notre Dame students in school gear waded into the cavernous mess hall with the gray-clad Army cadets, a chorus of boos erupted.

James Lindell, a senior from Hawaii who wore a Notre Dame Glee Club jacket, said he didn’t mind. He expected it on the Thursday before Army faced Notre Dame in a football game at Yankee Stadium in late November.

“I understood it was all in the spirit of competition,” Lindell said. “Once we all sat down at lunch, I got to meet the cadets I was sitting with. The football rivalry was quickly an afterthought to learning about each other’s college experiences.”

At least they could agree on “Beat Navy” to keep the peace. But the ribbing was good-natured: These young people, as future officers in the military after graduation, have values and training in common that are more important than a game.

Four-star General Bryan Fenton, a 1987 ND alumnus who addressed the mess hall crowd before lunch on Thursday, emphasized those shared values when he spoke to the Notre Dame contingent at the 9/11 memorial in New York City the next day.

“You have a really good opportunity to reinforce the connections between these two schools, Notre Dame and U.S. Military Academy,” Fenton said. “At the heart of that, it’s all about service and there’s a thread that goes back and forth that’s very similar: leaders of character. You got it going on at both schools.”

This inter-school camaraderie was part of the purpose of a bus trip to New York for Notre Dame’s Army ROTC seniors on what is an annual tradition known as a staff ride. In addition to meeting with their counterparts at West Point, the group learned about Revolutionary War history and visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which commemorates the events that inspired so many to join the military.

Typically, the senior cadets visit Gettysburg for their staff ride and learn about the Civil War, especially the connection to Rev. William Corby, C.S.C., who granted absolution to the soldiers of the Irish Brigade before the Battle of Gettysburg. But Lieutenant Colonel William Kobbe, professor of Army science at Notre Dame and former boxing instructor at West Point, decided the game against Army in New York presented unique possibilities.

“We have the opportunity to have our cadets come down here and learn a little bit of our nation’s history as they carry the tradition and profession of arms into the next generation, one that we certainly hope is full of peace,” Kobbe said. “But we’ll always prepare for that time if we’re called into action to do our nation’s bidding.”

West Point

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Brian DeToy, a 1985 graduate, has been leading the Notre Dame staff rides for nearly a decade. With a doctoral degree in history and experience teaching military science at West Point for 14 years, DeToy and his wife, Sheryl, started a company called Essential History Expeditions after his retirement in 2013.

Bringing history to life in the places where events happened is his approach to capturing people’s interest. But staff rides are a participatory endeavor—the ROTC cadets are each assigned a character to study and present at the proper time and place in the broader story.

The first stop was a short distance down the Hudson River from West Point, where British soldiers attacked and destroyed Forts Clinton and Montgomery in 1777. The Hudson River was of paramount importance during the Revolutionary War because the waterway was a troop transport into the heart of the continent and a way for the British to divide the rebellious colonies.

The colonists’ plan included a huge chain across the river that would slow British ships between the two adjacent forts, allowing cannon fire to rain down on the fleet while they negotiated the obstacle. Unfortunately, the well-trained Brits scouted the challenge, emptied their ships downriver, and hiked around to the backside of both forts. The result was a slaughter by British bayonets.

But DeToy emphasized that the Americans won the war despite losing most of the battles. The British finally lost upriver at Saratoga and retreated to New York City, allowing General George Washington to build similar but more impregnable defenses at West Point.

Matthew Stewart, a senior cadet from Columbus, Ohio, said his main takeaway from the staff ride was the importance of resilience.

“When you’re standing there on the battlefield in the rain and in the cold and you’re hearing about these forts getting overrun—this is kind of what it felt like here,” Stewart said. “These guys are trying to fight and their friends are dying. They were able to go through that and to keep fighting and ultimately come back from the edge of defeat and win the war.”

After lunch with the cadets in the mess hall, DeToy led a tour through the West Point Cemetery, where gravestones mark the final resting place of military leaders such as George Custer and Norman Schwarzkopf. Limited to graduates and college faculty and staff, the cemetery still includes a Revolutionary War fighter, Margaret Corbin. A cadet told her story of heroism, when she took over her husband’s cannon crew after he fell and was badly wounded herself.

But the students were most moved by personal stories of former students and friends of DeToy and Kobbe. DeToy spoke about a women’s basketball coach who led her team to its highest glory in her only year of coaching before she died. Kobbe told of a student who wasn’t a strong boxer but never gave up, showing that determination when he died while saving a drowning stranger.

Stewart said the individual stories from the older leaders and fellow students brought history to life.

“I think everyone that goes to Notre Dame is a perfectionist, so we all want to make sure our presentation’s perfect,” he said. “It makes the war and all of this history that you typically learn in a classroom feel more tangible and real.”

New York City

After driving about an hour toward the city, the bus stopped at Fort Lee, which overlooks the Hudson River and Manhattan on the other side. DeToy had students demonstrate tactics taught for land battles—frontal assault, envelopment, and infiltration—and noted that Fort Lee fell due to the same strategy employed earlier by the British at the other forts. But Washington was able to escape with nearly all his soldiers and later boxed in the British commander Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Another figure who played prominently in DeToy’s narrative was Benedict Arnold. DeToy noted that the famous traitor was crucial to earlier American victories before growing frustrated and trying to betray West Point’s defenses. He also emphasized that American soldiers around the world regularly try to turn opponents into allies by any means—a scenario that the cadets could soon face themselves.

The next day began with a subway ride from Times Square to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan. Gen. Fenton spoke to the cadets, thanking them for their choice to serve their country. He stood in front of the Horse Soldier statue and told how U.S. Green Berets in Afghanistan asked an airman to bring saddles for them. In the rugged terrain, they had adapted their mode of transportation but had to ride bareback at first.

The students contemplated the fountains of water falling into the outline of the original World Trade Center buildings that fell in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. In the museum, firefighter Tim Brown told his story to the Notre Dame contingent, now joined by a few dozen West Point cadets and a few students from Yale University.

Brown served as the liaison between the firefighters and the mayor’s office and was on duty at the World Trade Center on 9/11. His story of losing good friends and barely surviving the collapse of the towers had many listeners in tears. He also emphasized that first responders, like soldiers, run toward crises rather than away.

A short documentary made the connection to the military by showing the effort to bring justice to the terrorists through the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

Sadie Stinson, a senior ROTC cadet from San Francisco, said that although the students weren’t yet born on 9/11, they understand from their families and the military the impact of that day.

“That was the trigger for so many people, realizing we’re not as safe as we seemed,” Stinson said. “And we need to stand up and protect our values and what we fight for, and joining the military was the way for them to do that.

“For me, hearing those personal stories was the most impactful part of the day. Just understanding how shocking this event was ... it was really emotional for everybody in the room. And as a future active-duty officer, it was important to hear how multiple different agencies coordinated to make that bin Laden raid possible.”

After the museum visit, the combined group had lunch at Fraunces Tavern, a restaurant and historic site where Washington bid farewell to his officers in 1783 before leaving New York to resign his Army commission. DeToy emphasized throughout the trip the importance of Washington’s deference to civilian leadership.

Washington’s resignations after the war and his presidency were historic at a time when generals and kings did not voluntarily cede power. The point was reinforced later that night for other members of the Notre Dame community who watched the Broadway musical Hamilton at a Shamrock Series event.

After lunch, the cadets attended a lecture and panel discussion about civil-military relations and democracy in turbulent times. Retired General Joseph Votel gave the opening talk and was joined on the panel by political scientists Michael Desch from Notre Dame, Risa Brooks from Marquette University, and Colonel Suzanne Nielsen from West Point. The speakers discussed the challenges of civil-military relations and thanked the cadets for their voluntary service in a time when the military struggles to recruit.

Ken Heckel, Notre Dame’s director of military and veterans affairs and a 1996 graduate, led the planning and coordination of the week’s events, even collaborating with his ND classmate, Kevin Kuwik, now the coach of the men’s basketball team at West Point.

“This is the first time that ND and West Point have collaborated on something like this,” Heckel said. “We would love to continue future opportunities like this, for our ND cadets to engage with West Point cadets.”

The staff ride concluded Saturday with visits to three more Revolutionary War sites in the city. An afternoon break allowed the cadets to prepare for the football game against Army that night.

Multiple cadets expressed their appreciation for their ROTC experience in New York and overall. Stinson, who requested and received a military intelligence post after graduation in May, said she chose ROTC because she wanted to “carry on the tradition” of her grandfather who served in the Navy.

“His life really inspired me, and I just wanted that sense of service,” she said. “And joining ROTC was honestly the best thing that I’ve done.”.