[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 77 (Monday, May 16, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Page S2823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS AT THE 
                          UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

 Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this year marks the 100th 
anniversary of the Webfoot Warriors, the Reserve Officers' Training 
Corps program at the University of Oregon. As an alumnus of the 
University of Oregon Law School, I would like to commemorate this 
milestone. Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC, is a voluntary 
program offered at hundreds of schools across the country. Students who 
meet the eligibility requirements and stick with the program receive 
subsidized tuition and, after graduation, are commissioned as officers 
in the U.S. military. The ROTC curriculum consists of courses in 
military science and history as well as practical skills and leadership 
training.
  The ROTC program we know today traces its roots to the National 
Defense Act of 1916, a bill signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson 
barely a year before the United States entered World War I. Like many 
other university administrators of the day, Prince Lucien Campbell, the 
University of Oregon's president at the time, was a supporter of the 
program. President Campbell established the first ROTC curriculum at 
the University of Oregon, placing a retired British military officer--
the appropriately named Lieutenant Colonel John Leader--in charge. More 
than 100 students participated in the first drill in March 1916.
  The University of Oregon ROTC program commissioned its first officers 
in 1919, after the Allied victory in World War I, and the unit has 
produced some truly top-notch officers in the decades since. In fact, 
the Army Cadet Command awarded the unit a General Douglas MacArthur 
Award for the 2014-2015 academic year, recognizing it as one of the top 
eight Army ROTC programs in the country. According to the unit's 
records, the University of Oregon has produced more general officers 
than any nonmilitary ROTC program in the country. The program also 
counts a total of 47 flag officers among its graduates.
  As Oregonians, we have long taken pride in serving our State and this 
great country, and the Webfoot Warriors are hardly an exception. As 
then-President Campbell put it himself, ``the matter of military 
training in any school seems to me to be a training for better 
citizenship, rather than for war.'' Today I say thank you to all of the 
men and women of the Webfoot Warriors past and present, and I wish the 
University of Oregon ROTC program another 100 years of success.

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