Preparing Students to Serve Their Country
After being part of The Cardinal Newman Society family for many years, I am amazed at how my education at the United States Military Academy, known as West Point, parallels a Newman Guide education.
Both require the search for and commitment to the truth, service before self, moral formation, courage when it is unpopular, and loyalty to what is right. In the military, each decision, each order, each command in the heat of battle or as a Pentagon staff member must be truthful. Truth is the hallmark of a Newman Guide college education, just as it is an essential requirement for military service, with one major difference: Catholic education has the truth of divine revelation and the “certainty of already knowing the fount of all truth” (St. John Paul II).
The motto of the U.S. Military Academy is “Duty, Honor, Country,” which reflects the fundamental ideals instilled in each future officer. General Douglas MacArthur etched these words in time in a 1962 address to the Corps of Cadets:
“Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.”
Courage, faith, and hope are instilled in each graduate with the principle of doing what one ought to do in each situation. The Cadet Honor Code requires knowing the truth and telling the truth at all times, in all circumstances, even when it is not popular: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.” This is the basis of character formation. It establishes a basis of trust and is essential for forming leaders.
Newman Guide Recommended schools and colleges provide the same character formation. Military service after high school or college graduation offers a great means for well-educated graduates to thrive and continue to pursue their careers while not fluttering in the wind of relativism. They base their lives and their careers on an understanding of the truth.
A solid formation
After I retired from the Army and became the Director of Family Life in the Diocese of Arlington, Va., a recruiter from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) approached me one day to tell me how he loved recruiting graduates from Newman Guide Recommended colleges. He said they have a moral foundation, they are truthful, and they know how to seek knowledge.
In the military and in agencies like the CIA, the search for truth is essential, but equally essential is the certitude of knowing truth once it is discovered or revealed. According to our patron, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman,
…truth cannot change; what is once truth is always truth; and the human mind is made for truth, and so rests in truth, and it cannot rest in falsehood. When then it once becomes possessed of a truth, what is to dispossess it? but this is to be certain; therefore once certitude, always certitude.
Certitude and confidence in one’s ability to arrive at certitude is a required military tenet. When attacking an enemy target, especially in a populated area, the soldier must be assured of the exact position of the target. A lack of reason, skill, or confidence can result in civilian or friendly force casualties.
One of The Cardinal Newman Society’s recent student interns, Chuck Koach from Christendom College, cited one of his professors in an article he wrote for Crisis Magazine: “The world can train you in skills. What it can’t train is virtue. That’s up to you… Employers are starving for people who are grounded: people who aren’t swept away by every trend or talking point. Christendom forms people like that.”
The military, too, needs grounded individuals. While a company commander training young recruits how to fire a rifle, I recognized that those soldiers from Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee who had hunted since they were old enough to pick up a rifle were my best shots. They required little training. They instinctively knew how to engage a target at a long range. It was in their blood.
The same is true for forming dependable moral Catholic leaders. Those grounded in their Catholic faith and steeped in the truth are well-prepared for any profession and uniquely able to serve their country with distinction.
Guided by truth
Several Newman Guide Recommended colleges host Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) programs at their schools. The Catholic University of America, for instance, has a robust ROTC program training officers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Students also lead a club called Homefront, which promotes “faith, service, and charity” to support military members and families.
Benedictine College, Belmont Abbey College, University of Dallas, and University of St. Thomas (Houston) all have both Army and Air Force ROTC programs, some of them sponsored jointly with other nearby colleges. Franciscan University of Steubenville has an Air Force ROTC program.
Dean John Czarnetzky of Ave Maria School of Law is a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst. His law school actively recruits U.S. veterans and has a strong affinity for the military. He said it is “fitting and proper such an institution be governed by law, executed by the finest possible lawyers.” Ave Maria’s devotion to truth makes it especially appropriate for military attorneys’ legal education.
“How can an attorney be properly formed to understand and work with the law, if they do not understand the truth about the human person and about God?” Czarnetzky asked, adding, “We at AMSL are not confused about the truth, and we are not ashamed to teach law in light of it.”
John DeJak is director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. A graduate of Ave Maria School of Law and a former Army JAG Corps lawyer, he said his Ave Maria studies “prepared me for an understanding of not only how human beings operate but also the prudence with which law and order ought to be enacted for the flourishing of the individual and community.”
After graduation, service in the military can provide Catholics a continuing formation in virtue and service to one’s country, together with a Catholic sacramental and prayer life.
Dr. Timothy Collins, president of Walsh University, is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a former Air Force fighter pilot. He refers to his military service as a time of character building.
“My military service has shaped my personality and habits that support my resilience and leadership,” Collins said. The experience was “so important to building camaraderie [and] a sense of purpose in a life that is meant to serve others.”
“My faith and military service experience are central to my identity,” he said. They have “shaped how I think about who I am, what I value, and how to properly interpret duty, suffering, and purpose in the context of living right.”
After his military service, Dejak served in several teaching and administrative roles at Catholic schools. He was dean at St. Agnes School in St. Paul, Minn., and headmaster at Holy Spirit Academy in Monticello, Minn., both Newman Guide Recommended schools. He compared serving in the military and being a Catholic school leader: “One of the great things about serving in the military is the sense of mission; the same could be said about being an administrator in a Catholic school.”
This focus on mission includes a commitment to self-sacrifice. “The mission to serve Christ and His Church and form young people to do the same is bigger than any individual, and sometimes personal preferences must give way to that which accomplishes the mission best,” Dejak said.
Sadly, fewer young adults today are ready for a life of self-sacrifice and service to mission. While seeking the truth and knowing the truth with certitude are critical and essential elements of human development, too many schools and colleges today are confused by woke ideology, including many Catholic educational institutions.
This is why the Newman Guide Recommended schools and colleges stand out: they teach faith, reason, and virtue, faithful to the teachings of Christ through the Catholic Church. Their graduates embrace duty, honor, and country, all centered in Truth Himself.