Colonel Bruce Clarke ’61 Gives Memorial Chapel Address
9/12/2008
Each September, the first gathering of the school community in Memorial Chapel in Lambert Hall is an especially reverent occasion, a time when students are reminded that this beautiful, stately building was constructed as a memorial to those Middlesex students who died in World Wars I and II. For this year’s ceremony on September 10, 2008, the School welcomed back retired Colonel Bruce B.G. Clarke ’61, who appropriately dedicated his address to the men and women who “have held our freedoms so dear that they were willing to give the final measure of sacrifice – their very lives – in maintaining those freedoms for you and me.”
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Colonel Clarke graduated from West Point after Middlesex and earned a master’s degree at UCLA when he returned from serving in Vietnam. In his distinguished military career – which included commanding a squadron responsible for patrolling part of the East-West German border during the Cold War and serving as the Director of National Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College – he gained extensive strategic, operational, and tactical experience. Since retiring from active duty in 1995, he has advised U.S., European, and Middle Eastern companies on issues including national security, military modernization, and integrating advanced technology into military operations. He is also the author of Expendable Warriors: The Battle of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War.
Reviewing several of the many ideas that have been proposed about the causes of war, from psychological and sociological forces to demographic, economic, and rationalist theories, Colonel Clarke then discussed in depth the question of what victory means.
“Winning is not necessarily the destruction of the enemy, though it is often a consequence or objective,” he explained. Drawing on his own experience in Vietnam, where U.S. political and military objectives were not always clear and in accord, Colonel Clarke stressed, “We should learn from Vietnam that winning is the achievement of political objectives by military means. As the political goals changed, the military ones did not. When that occurs, the conflict is over.” Politicians therefore need to clarify “what it will mean to win” before any military strategies can be determined or engaged.
Noting that the nature of warfare today has changed greatly with the advent of radical terrorism, Colonel Clarke urged Middlesex students to remember the sacrifices of the graduates commemorated in the morning service. “Upon graduation,” he said in closing, “you will make decisions that may bring you to the brink of accepting that call to duty. I admonish you to be prepared, be diligent, and be firm in your calling to protect the freedoms of this great nation.”
According to annual tradition, the School’s Senior Master – Math Department Head Ron Banay – concluded the ceremony by reading the names of the 43 Middlesex graduates to whom Memorial Chapel is dedicated, subsequently sending the community back to classes with much to contemplate.