Letters From Baghdad: Our First Dispatch From the Front Line

25 November 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Letters From Baghdad: Our First Dispatch From the Front Line" by Josh Arthur CC '04.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, is stationed in a Sunni area and describes finding bodies of Shiites "in open fields near mosques, on heavily trafficked corners, or simply in sites that are known as places to expect to find bodies."

Wake Up Dems, Liberalism is Dead

14 November 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed column "Wake Up Dems, Liberalism is Dead" by Rudi Batzell.  Note:  Batzell calls for increasing the proportion of the military that comes from higher socioeconomic groups, but doesn't call for restoring ROTC at Columbia.

Stupid Soldiers

10 November 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-ed column "Stupid Soldiers" by Matthew Dunn and Michael Podberesky.  Note:  Responding to Brandon Hammer's 3 November column, they assemble the evidence that soldiers are above average on many measures of intelligence and income, with fewer at the high and low extremes.  The lack of an ROTC program at elite colleges may account for some of the data.  Similar data was assembled by the New York Times.

Reassessing Kerry's Botched Joke

3 November 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Reassessing Kerry's Botched Joke" by Brandon Hammer.  Note:  Hammer says it is "pretty true" that students who don't do well in school get "stuck in Iraq".  See response on 10 November.

Columbia’s Warrior

November 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Columbia’s Warrior".  Note:  Matt Mireles interviewed Josh Arthur CC '04, in Iraq after graduating from Columbia College and Army ROTC.  Arthur describes how he decided to go into an Army combat unit.