More Than Just an Anthem

On the surface, there wasn’t much to it.

At the start of last Friday night’s women’s basketball game against rival Princeton, the public address announcer informed the crowd, simply, “the colors this evening are presented by Harvard cadets.”

The presentation of colors is so commonplace a formality at sporting events across the country that the casual or visiting fan among the 1,537 that packed Lavietes Pavilion that night—including former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher, whose daughter Meghan stars for the Tigers—could be forgiven for not noting the novelty of the occasion.

Friday night’s color guard, however, was the first at a Harvard athletic venue in many years. Four students in uniform marched in step to center court, two standard bearers, one holding the American flag, another the flag of the state of Massachusetts, with an individual with a rifle on either side. The cadets presented arms, and the anthem played.

Instead of turning to face the American flag on the back wall of Lavietes for the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner, as per usual, Harvard head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith directed her team toward the color guard at halfcourt.

The four students are members of Harvard ROTC, an organization of only a dozen or so. Eric McKinney, the captain in charge of the Harvard cadets, reached out to the athletic department to facilitate the color guard. Jimmy Garmendia, a sophomore Cadet (MS2 Cadet, in the parlance) with the Paul Revere Batallion, was one of the participants holding the rifles.

Jimmy and I talked recently about the significance of the color guard’s appearance at the game, an eventual 80-57 Crimson win, and the rewards and challenges of being a cadet at Harvard.

“I think [McKinney] contacted whoever’s in charge of running the basketball games and asked them if we could do a color guard for the game and they said yes,” Jimmy said. “It was mutually beneficial to both parties—it’s nice to have a color guard at a basketball game and it’s nice to show our faces on campus.”

The color guard, though, as with many military rituals, is governed by strict procedures, and training time had to be devoted to mastering the steps.

“We spent about an hour the Wednesday prior to the game,” Jimmy said, “just practicing our maneuvers and gun manual so I actually knew how to handle the weapon.”

Yet there was far more to the event than drill practice. Remember, McKinney and ROTC took the initiative in arranging the presentation.

“It’s nice to raise awareness that there are fellow Harvard students who participate in ROTC,” Jimmy said. “And especially because not many people understand the opportunities available to them as a career or just time to serve in the military. And it’s also beneficial to see some sort of traditional patriotism on campus that maybe generally you wouldn’t see otherwise.”

In spite of the limited understanding among his peers, Garmendia remains devoted to his service and passionate about its relevancy.

“It’s an honor, to tell you the truth,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to serve. It’s challenging, getting up early in the morning, having to run several miles, do push-ups and sit-ups. At the same time, it gives me a lot of pride to know that I serve and it definitely unifies those who serve here at Harvard, because there’s so few of us. You’re learning a lot of leadership skills within the program that are unique to the ROTC experience, that you couldn’t find in other activities. And that’s essentially why I really enjoy this, because I feel like I get a lot out of ROTC that I couldn’t find elsewhere.”

And for Garmendia and others, the color guard at Lavietes was just a step in continuing to publicize ROTC among the bright and talented future leaders at Harvard.

“We’re hoping to raise awareness and show that there are opportunities for Harvard cadets,” Jimmy said. “Obviously any organization out there, including the military, would love to have Harvard students, just because we have such a wealth of student capabilities. We’d love to have a comeback and people be aware that they have the opportunity to do so.”

Still, it can be difficult for the cadets to confront the reality that, according to the Harvard College Handbook for Students, “although the University respects the right of undergraduates to participate in ROTC, the University does not provide any financial or other direct support for the ROTC program.”

“I think ROTC might have a negative stigma,” Jimmy said. “It’s nice that the public can see that we’re just regular Harvard students and, yeah, we do serve a purpose, albeit maybe not on Harvard’s campus because ROTC is not on Harvard’s campus.”

“As I understand,” he continued, “ROTC hasn’t had a presence on campus for several decades and I think the lack of color guards is just the result of that.”

“Obviously it’s up to the faculty or whoever else to bring it back to campus,” he concluded. “We’re just trying to raise awareness in our community to the fact that ROTC can benefit many students here at Harvard.”

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.