College isn’t just about getting good grades and coming out with a degree – it’s about developing and challenging ourselves. This is exactly what the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (Army ROTC) is designed to do. On the goarmy.com website they explain their mission statement:
“…The college elective for undergraduate and graduate students that provides unrivalled leadership training for success in any career field. If you have a passion for it, you can find a place to fit in the Army as an officer and get the training you need to turn that passion into a career” (Army ROTC – Way to Attend).
The Army ROTC aims to provide students with not only the college experience, but the experience and pride that comes with the training and serving for our country through the military. The Army ROTC exists today because in 1916, President Wilson signed the National Defense Act of 1916 – which federally funded and unified the military training that was taking place at colleges and universities across the country. There are currently 273 different programs across the country. The Army ROTC also “produces approximately 60 percent of the second lieutenants who join the active Army, the Army National Guard and the U.S. Army Reserve. More than 40 percent of current active-duty Army General Officers were commissioned through the ROTC (U.S. Army Cadet Command). Because the Army ROTC is such a complex and diverse group, it can be considered a discourse community.
Methodology
In order to understand whether the Army ROTC follows all six of Swales’ criteria for a discourse community, I did an informal interview with my friend Jimmy, who is part of the Army ROTC at Boise State University. Jimmy is a freshman at Boise State and lives down the hall from me and as I mentioned he is in his first year of the ROTC. The interview I did with him was to gain a better understanding of exactly what the ROTC was and how it fit the criteria. When I sat down with him, I asked him to elaborate on the different criteria and if I have any further questions, he told me to not hesitate to ask.