“Sound off,” a voice yelled from up ahead.

I kept my eyes focused on the yellow NAVY shirt bouncing up and down in front of me as we ran and let the others do the yelling. I didn’t want to break rank.

“SOUND OFF!” came the voice a second time, louder and more urgent than before.

I cocked my head towards the platoon commander. He was yelling at me. As I looked down my row of first-year NROTC students from Northwestern, all I could see was stolid faces, echoing the rhyming military chants, or “jodies,” their superiors barked at them.

We jogged along the river leading to the marina, passing by a group of naval officers as we climbed the hill back to the barracks, panting in the August heat. I was visiting the Great Lakes Naval Base, the sprawling military campus that you’ll find if you follow Sheridan Road to its logical end, dozens of miles north of Northwestern.

This was my third day at Freshman Orientation–an immersive introduction to NROTC life for both myself and the students around me. “O-Week,” as they called it, was punctuating a relaxing summer. Early morning wake-up calls and strict discipline were already changing them from a disparate group of pre-frosh into a cohesive unit.

But any references I made to Full Metal Jacket were quickly dismissed; this wasn’t boot camp, the drill instructors said. And as I would learn from conversations with Northwestern’s midshipmen, the instructors were mostly right. But as we filed back into the barracks, ending my attempt at getting in military shape, I realized this was only the beginning for the students around me. They’d be pushing their limits for the next four years; I had been struggling to finish their “motivational run,” the easiest one of the week.

Northwestern’s NROTC unit is admittedly small, numbering 17 students in total after a few drop outs. At Northwestern, students participating in the program have their tuition completely reimbursed by the federal government, in exchange for submitting to the program’s standards and serving a four-year tour of duty in the Navy after graduation.

O-Week was their first taste of physical stress and military discipline. Morning runs and exercises began before sunrise, and the time-consuming joys of summer life—like showering, eating and getting dressed—had to be pared down to fit the week’s carefully budgeted schedule.

“The intent is definitely to introduce a type of stress they haven’t experienced before,” says Lieutenant Steven Stashwick, an assistant professor of Naval Science.

It wasn’t exactly basic training, and it wasn’t intended to be—these students were headed to Evanston, not Fort Evans. But it was intense. The day I arrived, the freshmen (now called “midshipmen”) had just finished their first physical fitness assessment, which began at 5:30 a.m. They were walking between lectures on military courtesies and scheduled breaks in a slightly stilted manner, likely having as much to do with lack of sleep as much as fear of falling out of line.

And they were stripped of the ability to refer to themselves as, well, themselves. Every answer to an officer came in third person. “This midshipman isn’t sure” became a common response to the commanding officers’ questions that often caught the freshmen by surprise.

The commanding officers were determined to help the students find their limits — often by pushing them uncomfortably close to the breaking point— thus giving them an idea of what they’re really capable of.

“I was like, scared out of my mind,” admits Griffin Kelly, an energetic McCormick freshman with an athletic build. “That first day was pretty bad, but then it just started easing up.”

NROTC freshman Griffin Kelly in his Elder dorm room. Photo by Jared T. Miller / North by Northwestern

Instructors are easier on the yelling and the discipline back on campus, but Keg nights aren’t exactly in the cards for most NROTC freshmen. Naval Science classes take place two or three days a week at 7:30 in the morning. At the beginning of fall quarter, the midshipmen march at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during their morning drill practices, and have a Tuesday afternoon “Lab,” which might include physical fitness training or a guest speaker. Wednesday mornings are for 6 a.m. physical training—those in good enough shape to pass the regular physical assessments only have to go once a week. Stragglers must be there three times a week. And all midshipmen are expected to be 15 minutes early to everything and dressed properly.

“Those first two days, I wanted to shoot myself. I’m just like, ‘If it’s like this, I’m probably going to cry, and drop out of school or something,” says Kelly about balancing NROTC life with the first few days of classes. He’s already got some catching up to do. He describes his course load, which has him in classrooms from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day (and that’s after PT), as “not fun.”

Save for the “I Want You” Uncle Sam poster on his door sign, his dorm room looks like any other. But as we enter his room, the dividing line between NROTC students and other freshmen becomes clearer.

“What the fuck are you wearing that for?” his roommate asks lazily, observing the pleated khakis Kelly was wearing as he focused on the rest of the uniform laying out on his bed. He met his roommate while living in Japan—one of the many places he’s lived due to his father’s career moves. He was born in Dallas, where his dad was stationed before he finished his term of service, and where he saw his father’s final flight as a naval aviator at the age of 4.

“It kind of left an impression on my mind,” says Kelly, who has ambitions to be a pilot as well. His uncle also went through the NROTC program at the University of Chicago and his grandfather served in World War II as a Navy corpsman. Every summer, his family takes a trip to Pensacola, Fla., where his father went to flight school. Throughout his youth abroad, there was always a military base nearby—in Japan, he used to frequent military bases to get his hands on American food when Japan’s fare didn’t satisfy.

“I guess now that I look back on it, I guess it makes sense why I picked this direction,” says Kelly. “Everything in my life has revolved around the military.”

“Kelly is always ahead. I don’t know how he does it, but he does,” laughs Joseph Figueroa, a Weinberg freshman, about how his fellow midshipman is able to stay on top of classes. Figueroa lives a few doors down from Kelly on the same floor in Elder—but the similarities end there.

Figueroa’s family has a vastly different relationship with the military. His father entered the armed forces in 1971—the last year of the Vietnam draft—as a “draft-motivated volunteer.” That meant that instead of serving on the front lines, he decided to tack on an extra two years of service in exchange for the chance to become a pilot, and was stationed in Thailand instead.

Figueroa’s half-brother had a career in Special Operations as a sniper, but was left with post-traumatic stress disorder. “I guess he did some stuff that he regretted or whatever,” says Figueroa, conceding that he might one day have to do the same. “And yet I’m still here at Northwestern, putting on my Navy uniform.” His mother is still getting used to the thought of her son joining the NROTC.

Joseph Figueroa joined NROTC late; his tuition won’t be reimbursed. Photo by Jared T. Miller / North by Northwestern

Signing up for the NROTC was a late decision for him (he didn’t think he’d get in to Northwestern in the first place). That means he won’t be receiving any compensation for this year’s tuition.

“I have no obligation to do this,” laughs Figueroa, who often gets puzzled looks when he admits he doesn’t get a scholarship for participating. “That scares people.”

It’s not the patriotism that drove Figueroa to join (though he says he enjoys defending the right for people to question why the hell he joined). He says he wants to push himself to “experience the road less traveled.” He respects the strength of character the military teaches. Figueroa says his father, the first man in his family to receive a high school diploma, is a “hard guy,” but admires the self-discipline his father embodies.

And he’s already seen returns on his decision to join. He’s improving on his physical training, and he’s taught himself to iron the night before “inspections,” when the commanding officers make sure uniforms are up to standard.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Really? You want to join the military? You’re the guy that wants to wear sweatpants to classes,’” says Figueroa. “I represent not only myself, but I represent my family, the Navy, Northwestern—I represent these people and I want to be able to show people that I represent them correctly.”

He’ll be representing the institution for quite a while. He has dreams to be a doctor, setting his sights on the Navy’s competitive medical program. That means devoting at least the next 12 years of his life to his country–four in NROTC, four on a tour of duty and the remainder spent training as a doctor and completing four years of service in the Navy reserves.

“That’s a huge chunk of my life,” says Figueroa with a wry smile. “But hey, you do it because you want to do it, not because the money tells you to do it.”

It’s hard to find a more visible midshipman on campus than Weinberg senior Luke Adams. He’s made a name for himself that doesn’t quite fit the military stereotype. I first met him unknowingly two years ago when a rapper named “Eljay” took the stage at Bill’s Blues Bar. He performed “I Felta Thi,” an upbeat mockery of Northwestern’s sorority rush.

He’s also been Northwestern’s third party candidate for ASG—a campaign that included as many heartfelt campaign pledges as whimsical stunts, like when he trucked a giant Papier-mâché dollar sign up Sheridan Road to protest the excesses of student government.

But both the rapping and the politicking represent Adams’ interest in performing in front of peers. He’s been performing in plays since grade school, and released an Eljay album on iTunes last year. His inclination toward the spotlight makes sense—he’s the Northwestern NROTC’s Battalion Commander.

“It’s not like the only thing I can do after the navy is be on Deadliest Catch or [be] some kind of oceanographer or something,” says Adams, explaining the self-disciplinary benefits of the NROTC lifestyle, among others. “The most important thing is going to be the leadership.”

Adams is the highest-ranked midshipman on campus. He acts as the liaison between the Unit staff and the midshipmen, passing down orders and schedules, and as an advocate for the midshipmen, bringing any concerns to the officers. He occasionally speaks in front of the Naval Science Lab, an opportunity he considers his favorite part.

Adams has a pragmatic set of reasons for joining the ROTC. He appreciates the fact that he’ll graduate without any debt, and likes knowing he’ll have a job once he graduates—he saw corporate headhunters offer a position to his sister when her tour of duty ended. (She graduated from Northwestern’s NROTC program in 2000, and is currently a Lieutenant Commander; she denied the job offer in order to do intelligence work in Hawaii.)

He says he draws a sense of discipline from the military that extends into daily life. He gave me an obsessive rundown of his morning schedule — in and out of a shower in five minutes, downstairs to the dining room by half past the hour and eating breakfast while he waits for exactly five minutes as the coffee machine brews his morning caffeine fix.

Still, he says that NROTC life hasn’t prevented him from living his college life “to the fullest,” and pledged Sigma Chi as a sophomore at the urging of a few fellow midshipman. He describes inertia when explaining he’d probably do fewer extracurricular activities if he weren’t in NROTC.

“If I’m at rest, I’m going to tend to stay at rest,” he says.

The last day I spent at the base during O-Week was a welcome break for the freshmen. It was the beginning of “sail week,” the last part of orientation during which they’d be out on Lake Michigan, maneuvering boats around the sheltered marina and learning the basics of sailing.

Gone were the days of referring to oneself as “this midshipman.” The navy’s khaki uniforms were swapped out for bathing suits, athletic shorts and fluorescent life jackets. Laughter echoed off of the walls of the harbor from the midshipmen still not totally sure how to handle the rigging of their ships.

“In a lot of cases, joining a group begins to define who you are,” says R. Scott Tindale, a professor of psychology at Loyola University. “In some senses, groups can be very good at reducing uncertainty.”

After seeing the freshmen answer their commanding officers rigidly, still on edge from a week of discipline and early morning exercise, this was certainly a change of pace. The group was becoming closer, helping each other prepare the sails and working as a team to steer the sailboats between docks in the harbor.

Tindale cites the power of a collective identity as an important motivator for joining a group like the NROTC. When the identity of a group becomes most important, he says, differences of background temporarily fall by the wayside — like how joining a military unit promotes cohesion over individualism.

“You want to care about this group,” says Tindale, regarding the mindset of a new member. “You want this group to succeed because it’s part of who you are.”

Lieutenant Steven Stashwick during sail week. Photo by Jared T. Miller / North by Northwestern

For the midshipmen, the NROTC will serve to shape who they are. Kelly’s always wanted to be a pilot for the Navy. And even for Figueroa, the rules that define his days also help define what he hopes to get from his college experience.

“I kind of decided I’d rather work towards disciplining myself and teaching myself that these are my priorities, this is what I need to get done,” says Figueroa. “You want to become the best that you can become.”

Figueroa laughs as he glances at the uniform laid out on his bed for the next day’s inspection. We were talking about the typical “college experience,” and if being in the NROTC limits that experience for freshmen entering the program. He talks about the merits of a less-disciplined lifestyle — like the one most of Northwestern’s freshman class is experiencing—and immediately realized the irony that he signed himself up for conformity, care of the U.S. Navy.

“But you know, this is being myself,” says Figueroa, satisfied. As we walk out the door to Elder, he pauses for a moment.

“I mean, I could quit this year—I could quit tomorrow. Who knows?” he says. “But I’d always be able to look back and say ‘Hey, I was in the navy for 3 weeks.’”

We both laugh.

“It’s all about the experience, man.”

The floor has begun to sag just past the entrance to the DM tent. About the size of two dancers in diameter, the area around one of the tent poles has sunk a few inches. It is currently roped off to prevent further damage from nearby dancers.

As he spoke Wednesday on the importance of activism, Bill Ayers quoted a wide range of intellectuals: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Luxemburg, José Saramago, and of course, the British comedy group Monty Python.

Ayers quoted a scene in which a prophet tells his followers that they have minds of their own, only to hear those words parroted back at him. The reference, which garnered a few laughs from the audience, was not out of context at “Peaceful Progress: A Discourse on Affecting Change,” presented by the Muslim cultural Students Association at Cahn Auditorium at 7 p.m. Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former member of the Weather Underground, used the scene to emphasize the night’s theme of encouraging individual thought and activism. He shared the stage with Northwestern law professor and former Weather Underground member Bernadine Dohrn and Muslim activist Rami Nashashibi, and the three conducted a panel discussion after speaking individually about the importance of affecting change.

Photo by Jared T. Miller / North By Northwestern.

The evening began with a recitation from the Qur’an as well as introductions by Tedd Vanadilok, Director of Asian-American Student Affairs; For Members Only President and Communication senior Zachary Parker (who congratulated McSA on behalf of the Coalition of Colors); and McSA President Weinberg senior Dana Shabeeb. Associate Professor of African-American Studies Martha Biondi introduced the night’s speakers, acknowledging their work as Chicago activists and community leaders.

“We are here to discuss progress,” Shabeeb said, in her opening remarks. “Dogma should never prevent us from learning from one another.”

Dohrn spoke first, explaining her background in racial justice and her experiences with Ayers in trying to understand racism and its ties to “justice, empire and war in American life.” She explained two key cultural developments in recent decades: the demonization and criminalization of minority youth; and the development of the idea of the “terrorist,” both which result from racial profiling and discriminate severely against certain segments of the population. Giving historical examples as well as current ones — including an article from Wednesday’s New York Times that showed only 9 percent of those arrested as “suspected terrorists” were actually fugitives — Dohrn explained the severe racial inequalities in the justice system that exist today, despite the “significant milestone” achieved by electing President Barack Obama.

Against that backdrop, Dohrn advocated “challenging the dishonest narratives” that persist today, and making sure that the activist momentum built during the Obama campaign continues to affect change.

“I’m urging you to think big,” Dohrn said, “And to make sure that our dreams of a more just and a more democratic society are possible.”

Ayers stressed a different side of activism. He began with a question — “How good are we?” — then explained that while we may see ourselves to be moral people, we often are not aware of injustice around us and do not take action against it. He used many literary and artistic references, such as the Brazillian film Central Station, José Cerramago’s Blindness and the scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, to caution against ignorance and “blindness.”

“[It's about] challenging ourselves to say, ‘Really, what do I know about the world?’” Ayers said, emphasizing the need for action beyond simply acknowledging injustice. “What have I seen, and what am I missing?”

Ayers reiterated the importance of turning knowledge into action. Like the characters in the literary works he referenced, overcoming ignorance was the first step. Ayers acknowledged that there are many injustices to focus on — a complaint even his own students have expressed — but picking just one is enough to make a difference.

“You don’t have to do everything,” Ayers said. “But you have to do something.”

A varied mix of students came to hear the speakers. Photo by John Meguerian / North by Northwestern.

Nashashibi spoke after, beginning by calling McSA “courageous” for hosting the event. He went on to quote the same speech from Dr. King that Dohrn had spoke about, and read excerpts from a letter by Rabbi Robert Marx, who marched with Dr. King. In both, the men write about taking unpopular stances in their own communities. Nashashibi similarly emphasized challenging members of the Muslim community to recognize racial injustice as their own responsibility, regardless of which ethnic group is the target. He also explained that activism is rooted in the Qur’an, which stresses self-accountability and social justice.

“I believe our voice, not unlike the voices of King and Marx, can be one that is grounded in a very spiritual center,” Nashashibi said.

The three speakers then sat down for a brief panel discussion, fielding questions about the Gaza War, Ayers’s experience during the Obama campaign, the failure of the “War on Drugs,” and Ayers and Dohrn’s latest book, Race Course Against White Supremacy.

“We addressed the goals we were trying to achieve tonight,” said McSA co-president and Weinberg junior Mustafa Rahman, who felt the night was a success. “[We] challenged Northwestern students to affect change.”