Panhandle Health District (PHD) Mask Mandate

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by volosong

When I attended San Diego State in the late 70s and early 80s, it had a reputation as a "party school". Looks like the students are still feeding the reputation. (I had a wife and an infant, so didn't get a chance to participate. I was there to get my degree, and then get a job.)

Yup. A decade earlier in the 60s, San Diego State had that reputation.

So did the University of Idaho. In the early 60s, it was the most notorious party school in the northwest.

That was mostly due to Idaho's more tolerant liquor laws; 20 was the legal age to drink beer in Idaho, so all the students in Washington State came across the border from Pullman, only 9 miles away, to party in Moscow.

In 1963, the last year ROTC was mandatory for all freshman and sophomore men in both schools, the party that followed the last military review of the year lasted 3 days and Moscow was literally drunk dry twice.

The yearly military review was the occasion when all the military branches marched onto the football field in late May.
New officers received their commissions and various awards, and the over 3/4 of the men who were students were on the field. Everyone else filled the stands to watch the parade, which always included the college band at the rear and a military band at the front.

The event lasted about 4 hours, mostly spent in the heat of the day standing at parade rest and trying not to faint and fall over for most of the guys on the field. Always on a Friday, beginning at noon. All other classes were closed for the day.

So after it was over, the entire university was mighty hot, dry, and ready to party as soon as all the rifles went back into the armory.

So much beer was consumed that the distributors had to go to Lewiston and Pullman to re-stock Moscow, and at the end of the third day, all 3 cities were completely out of beer.

There were around 2500 students enrolled in the obligatory ROTC. Less than half of them were upper classmen who enrolled during their sophomore year to take advantage of the military's college tuition pay and the monthly stipend. Together, college was next to free as long as a student maintained a C average.

The mandate was part of the federal assistance that was provided to all the state colleges in the nation. Back then, the federal government still covered most of the cost of all the state colleges.

Mandatory ROTC (Reserve Officer's Training Corps) was added at the beginning of WWII, when the nation needed a steady supply of military officers.

By 1963, that need had vanished and the mandate was costing the military a lot of money, so enlisting during college became voluntary afterward.
The freshman and sophomores didn't have to do much; one Saturday morning a month they all put their uniforms on and learned how to drill on the football field, and there was a one-hour class one evening a week that required attendance in uniform that taught some of the boot-camp basics.

The ROTC program was very popular in Idaho, as it helped keep college tuition cheap in the 2 state universities of the time. Enrolling in the military as a sophomore was also extremely popular, as it paid all the other costs of college attendance.

For a lot of miner's and farmer's kids, ROTC was the only way they could afford going to a 4-year college. Back then, Boise State was a 2-year junior college, as were all the others in the state except for the U of I and ISU.
This was especially true for a lot of the miner's kids who didn't want to follow Dad down into the mines. I knew quite a few of them, and for almost every one of them, ROTC was the way they could get a degree and get out of the state for good.

Those who joined became reserve officers in the Army, and there was a 4-year obligation, with 3 years of active service.
The Army was the automatic service for almost all of the freshmen and sophomores, but a student could transfer to the Air Force ROTC if desired.

To join the Navy's ROTC program demanded enrollment, optional for a freshman and obligatory for a sophomore. Upon graduation, the Navy required 6 years of active service or 8 years of reserve service. Only the Navy paid a student a full service man's wages; until commissioning, a student was enlisted, attended many more naval classes, and could advance in rate just as if they were on active duty until they were commissioned as officers.
It was possible to be commissioned before graduation by the Navy as well, if a student applied for sea duty.

This was a very popular option in the Naval ROTC, because many of those guys went straight to the nuclear naval training that was done at the INL lab in Idaho Falls.
Every nuclear submariner in the fleet was trained in the sub school that was located in the INL. There was a commissioned replica of the Nautilus at the site that was a fully functional interior of a nuclear submarine.

Sub school added another 4 years of obligation, but when a student left the Navy, there were plenty of civilian careers in nuclear power they could walk straight into, all over the country.

A good deal for a kid who was stuck in Idaho with no chances to get ahead in life.

[f5fstop]

Weren't all colleges noted to be party schools? Even Wayne State in MI, where I attended was a big party school. Only reason I didn't party that much was I was a Vietnam combat vet and in the early 70s when I was attending college, Vietnam vets were not invited to most of those parties (probably a good thing too considering who was throwing the parties). But then, no one messed with any of us; and some would not come close to us...(yes, we relearned how to take a shower after returning).

[oldafretired]

This is just sad. Can't believe this can happen in Idaho. No wonder the city is named Moscow.

https://youtu.be/9uRolZF77nk