Although SMU is less than 100 years old, it has been home to at least 20 generations of students. And almost every one has been faced with the possibility of war.
During the 20th century, SMU faced WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Gulf War. Should President Bush convince Congress of the necessity of ousting Saddam Hussein, both this country and the student body will be confronted with another war.
Marshall Terry is an English professor who has taught at this university since 1956 and was a student before that. Terry believes that the elements of the university he experienced as a student still exist at SMU, and that the university is usually supportive of government decisions in wartime.
“SMU is not like Columbia,” he said. “For the most part, student reaction to war is like a gentle lapping of the shore.”
“Maybe during Kent State there were a few students who protested, but the campus is usually fairly quiet. This school has conservative roots and a Republican heritage – we had Laura Bush, and Cheney on the board of trustees. It would be horrifying to think that the basic character of this school changed over the years.”
History department chair Jim Hopkins was a student at the University of Texas during Vietnam and was an army hospital administrator at Fort Hood. He remembers student opposition to war that began as a “very clear fear among male students about the draft,” which largely collapsed after the draft disappeared.
“What a university should be about is open debate and discussion,” he said. “If we see the university as a place where free discourse can occur, then SMU is doing its duty.”
WWII – Campus memorials and quiet conviction
In 1943, President Umphrey-Lee wrote an open letter in the Rotunda explaining that the Navy would begin to send SMU students to be trained as officers for general service.
“Like every other enterprise, the university is occupied with ‘war work,'” he explained, “but with the university this means the training of men and women. Most of the men will enter the armed services, and many of the women will have an active part in the war.”
Terry says that during WWI and WWII, the student body was patriotic and committed to the wars, a fact which Hopkins agrees with. Plaques commemorating those students who died during the wars can be seen on both sides of the entrance to Fondren Library and in the Perkins Administration Building.
“War was no abstraction for them. They knew what they were fighting and dying for. In all wars, these are lives unlived, dreams unrealized. But their patriotism was shared and affirmed by their fellow SMU students,” Hopkins said.
The 1943 Rotunda bears a dedication to SMU students serving in the WWII armed forces, effectively describing the great emotion felt toward those who had left college to serve.
“They, who, when called, laid down their books and with simple faith put on the raiment of battle to do a job that their country told them they must do, will find their glory in the eyes of those who remained behind,” it states.
Vietnam – A call to cope with inner turmoil
When four students were shot by the national guard at Kent State during a Vietnam war protest in 1970, Terry was visiting Stanford. While there, he saw several protests – one culminating in the burning down of a building. He came home to SMU in the spring to what he called a “peaceful gathering” on the steps of Dallas Hall.
A memorial service planned by SMU student leaders was held at Perkins Chapel two days later. While the school didn’t cancel classes, then president Willis Tate urged the student body to decide for themselves how they would, in a non-violent way, respond to the tragedy.
“Those of us who treasure reason are heartbroken to see hate and violence rule the actions of men,” Tate said. “Each of us must cope with shock, indignation and sorrow … We hope for all of you, it will be a call to think. To succumb to blind anger brings inhuman suffering and, as we have seen, even death.”
The Board of Trustees late adopted a resolution reaffirming that SMU’s differing points of view “can be defended without recourse to disruption, destruction or violence.”
For a number of years, SMU faculty and students responded to the Vietnam War through protest and class discussion. SMU faculty organized a Moratorium Day on Oct. 15, 1969, where students could be counseled and those who had died could be mourned. Support for this moratorium was mixed, with students carrying signs reading, “support our boys in Vietnam” and “This is America, love it or leave it.”
Terry recalls that many students enrolled in the School of Theology to stay out of the war as conscientious objectors. He also remembers counseling another student concerned about being drafted into the war – who otherwise “dearly loved America” – not to go to Canada.
The Gulf War – Debate on the steps of Dallas Hall
On the first day of the 1991 spring semester, the U.N. deadline for Hussein to pull his troops out of Kuwait expired, prompting what would eventually become Operation Desert Storm. The Advocates for Peace in Global Affairs organized a rally on the steps of Dallas Hall the next day, urging members of the SMU community to participate and express different viewpoints.
The rally clearly divided students on the right and on the left, with many conservative students, such as student body president Jonathan Polak, carrying pictures of then-president George Bush. A 30-minute debate between Polak and Mark Holland, co-chair of APGA, aired on KLIF. The rally ended with both sides joining in a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” with those students clearly divided making peace hand signals.
Many members of the faculty spoke against the Gulf War, including chaplain Bob Cooper and Jim Hopkins, who was associate dean of general education.
Hopkins calls student reaction to the Gulf conflict different from reaction to current problems in Iraq.
“My students do not have to worry about being in harm’s way in Iraq,” he said. “So, to many, war with Saddam Hussein possesses a kind of impersonality. It will be a war fought by others. This was not the case in Vietnam when the draft threatened everyone in some way, although it was a war fought mostly by working-class kids, as it will be if we go to war with Iraq.”
Hopkins recalls a “smallish group of students” picketing Moody Coliseum on the day Norman Schwarzkopf came as a guest lecturer. He believes that public approval of Desert Storm was due to the fact that the United States had not been in a winning war since WWII. While there were several hundred thousand casualties in the previous war, casualties during the Gulf War were fewer than anyone had ever expected.
“[The invasion of Kuwait] was seen by most Americans as a clear case of naked aggression,” he said. ” Today, the issues surrounding a new war against Iraq are much more in dispute. What remains, however, is the very human propensity to reduce complex issues to slogans and stereotypes, whether a supporter or a critic of President Bush’s policies.”
Facing the future with a legacy of tolerance
Terry believes that SMU responded well to the terror attacks on Sept. 11.
“They demonstrated that this university is still committed to matters of knowledge,” he said. “They didn’t say, ‘you’re not a patriot if you ask, why would they attack, or what’s the nature of Islam.’ Ignoring those questions keeps progress from happening.”
Hopkins feels that SMU’s decision to accept different viewpoints is part of an honorable legacy, and points to Dr. Martin Luther King’s decision to make SMU the first university he ever spoke at.
” The danger that we run is that any criticism of our present policy can be called unpatriotic,” he said. “Therefore, I have great admiration for those students who have tried to widen the conversation about war with Iraq. In so doing, arguments on all sides are sharpened, understanding grows, and there is less room for polemics.”
Terry doesn’t feel that the student body is very concerned over an impending war in Iraq.
“They fee
l that if there is a war, it will be over quickly,” he said. “If we go into war, there will be the dissenters, who will say that it was a stupid move, and others who will defend it to the teeth. There would probably be a parallel to the Vietnam years. I think students are more concerned that there will be another terrorist attack.”
While Hopkins agrees that reaction will not be as intense as it has been in the past, he believes that the amount of young people that may be involved in a war demands intense discussion.
“Going to war is the most terrible act that a country can commit,” he said. “When I hear students robustly debating various positions, I think of those thousands who went through my hospital at Fort Hood, and I believe they would say that this kind of conversation is the most positive and constructive legacy they could leave to the young men and women who follow them today.”
