Wall Street Journal recently published a piece written by Rob Henderson which addressed the issue of how some college students undermine the values that our veterans fight for.
In the piece, published on Nov. 10 in preparation for veterans’ day, Henderson discusses the idea of campus culture, and the how students and activists on college campuses seek to destroy and undermine the very American values that our veterans fight for. Henderson argues that often students proudly ridicule the first amendment, and fight to dismantle the second amendment.
He recalls a conversation he had with a fellow veteran who seemed to question the mindset of college students. Henderson wrote that many veterans share these experiences. According to Henderson, while in the military, veterans witness colleagues “swearing an oath to defend with their lives the U.S. constitution, including the First and Second amendments,” according to Wall Street Journal.
Henderson mentions how a veteran can begin to question their service to country and defending our rights, while activists use these same rights to rally towards undoing everything that the veterans fought so heard to protect, according to Breitbart. It seems the very rights and values the veterans fight and die for were being used by activists to dismantle and undermine.
“Are veterans being duped, he questioned, into believing they are upholding American values while the richest kids in the world—the ones being groomed for success and power—try to undermine them?” Henderson wrote in the Wall Street Journal piece.
“He’s not the only one who feels that way. Many veterans I know who enter college are bewildered by what they see: students from the top income decile expressing derision for the values that service members signed up to defend. Perhaps they could be forgiven for feeling like suckers,” Henderson wrote.
Despite the unsettled feeling, these war veterans have to keep themselves from speaking out regardless of how they feel, according to Henderson.
“Veterans who first serve in the military and then attend elite colleges learn to navigate both moral worlds. On campus we learn to blend in, even at the cost of feeling betrayed. We keep our love for America to ourselves. We don’t want to give veterans a bad reputation,” Henderson wrote.
However, Henderson argued that deep down, these elite students do actively love their country and its values, as being vocal about defending these values will give the impression one is simple and unread, whereas to fight against these values would ultimately make a person seem highly educated.
“In truth, many of the rich kids at elite colleges love American values, too. But they know that loving the Constitution and its first two amendments marks one as working-class or low-status, and that being against those things codes as educated. So they rail against those values to distinguish themselves from one crowd and fit into another,” Henderson wrote.
“Many students at elite colleges are duping themselves, too. They don’t realize that they are protected by the very principles they despise and the people to whom they condescend,” he wrote.
