When Professors Attack
BABBIN, JED
When Professors Attack They make fools of themselves. BY JED BABBIN LIKE THE POOR, those who hate the military will always be with us. They believe that America is bad, and that a soldier's only...
...And St...
...Richard Yanikoski, declined my requests to be interviewed for this article...
...Kirstein thinks that a professor should "teach what interests [him] even in a required 'core' course...
...Their frustration at all this—when it boils over— reveals much about these so-called teachers and the colleges they infest...
...The issue is whether someone like Kirstein—who is completely immersed in his own political bile—is fit to teach at any college...
...Yanikoski announced that Kirstein had been relieved of his teaching duties for the semester, and would receive an official letter of reprimand...
...Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, and is the author of the novel Legacy of Valor...
...But it cannot end there, because the real issue is not the gratuitous libels or the resulting outrage...
...Kirstein's barely literate response got around by e-mail pretty quickly...
...Kirstein teaches history at St...
...Whatever your college student may be taught in Kirstein's class, it certainly won't be history...
...Kirstein will be kept on sabbatical leave in the spring semester, and his tenure reviewed...
...News & World Report's college ratings, St...
...After the phony apology, the Wall Street Journal was willing to declare peace, its November 12 editorial concluding that we have a "happy ending...
...In it, Kirstein says only that he regrets impugning Cadet Kurpiel's character, and graciously accepts Kurpiel's apology "for the unwarranted national distribution of a private e-mail correspondence...
...Resign your commission and serve your country with honour...
...Kirstein got a flood of protests...
...In response, he issued what he and his college have falsely labeled an apology...
...Xavier's president has now moved to defend the school's standards...
...One who responded was Professor Peter Kirstein of St...
...Then came 9/11, and the hate-the-military types haven't had it so bad since WWII Hollywood was turning out the "Why We Fight" movies...
...No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation...
...You are worse than the snipers...
...Xavier...
...About Kirstein's other libels, there is neither apology nor retraction...
...Then the media picked it up, and Prof...
...Tom and his guys were headed to Baghdad at high speed and low altitude when orders stopped them from finishing the job...
...Help you recruit...
...The Vietnam era ended suddenly in 1991...
...According to U.S...
...America's short-haired epiphany may have come at the instant CNN showed my former Pentagon neighbor, Marine Brigadier General Tom Draude, talking to his troops on the eve of battle...
...The Vietnam era belonged to them and, even after the war ended, their rants went unanswered...
...For the military, the 1960s are over, and those who survived have gone on to real jobs...
...His polite request sought advice on publicity for the event and such...
...On November 15, Dr...
...They believe that America is bad, and that a soldier's only value is as an object of ridicule and scorn...
...Who, top guns to reign [sic] death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world...
...Wow...
...You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us...
...Kirstein apparently stands by his statements that Air Force cadets are "cowards," "worse than the snipers" (the e-mail was sent a week after the suspected Washington-area killers were caught), and that 9/11 is partly their fault...
...Xavier president Dr...
...Both Prof...
...According to the "teaching philosophy" on his webpage, teachers should express their opinions and "should be free to engage in academic revisionism in their field...
...His October 31 diatribe has to be read in full and verbatim: You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage...
...Whether the review proves serious or merely nominal will say much about the final outcome...
...On October 8, Air Force Academy cadet Robert Kurpiel sent an e-mail to several college professors seeking support for the academy's annual assembly, which provides a forum for the exchange of political views...
...Instead of frantic civilians catching the last helo out of Saigon, we have Delta Force commandos charging Mazar-i-Sharif on horseback, sitting tall in the saddle...
...America responded to the Gulf War with an overwhelming support for the professional military that had been long obscured from view...
...Instead of Pete Seeger, we have Toby Keith...
...You are unworthy of my support...
...For the egg-throwers, it's still 1968, and a large number of them have gone on to academia...
...September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra...
...In Tom, everyone saw the smart, tough leader who has always inspired trust and confidence...
...Kirstein and his boss, St...
...Are you serious sir...
...Xavier University in Chicago...
...Those of us who wore the uniform in the 1970s were taught restraint, and threatened with courts-martial if we gave in to our instincts to beat the snot out of the ones tossing eggs at us and calling us "baby killers...
...Kirstein's statement on teaching philosophy ends with the rallying cry, "Remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, Kent State, Jim Crow and Selma...
...Xavier is one of the top ten best values in graduate studies in the Midwest...
...That means—in Kirstein's words— that teachers should teach "peace, freedom, diversity . . . and challenge American unilateralism...
...The military community is used to shrugging off such petty outbursts...
...The effeteniks of academia have lived to see the Evil Empire they half-defended fall, and their profanation of the military rejected by everyone except themselves...
...I received it from no fewer than three Air Force pals...
Vol. 8 • December 2002 • No. 12
