Keynote address: History lessons apply as grads move on to next challenges

Randy Roberts, Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue, made these remarks during the university’s December graduation ceremony for Ph.D. grads.

Thank you, Mr. Provost. And to everyone, welcome.

I’ve never given a commencement speech, but I have a lot to say about education, the American moment, and life in general.

But don’t worry. I won’t say it all. I’m mindful of Mark Twain's advice: When asked about the secret of his legendary success as a speaker, he remarked: Listeners prefer a bad short speech to a long good one.

Let’s begin by offering thanks to parents and mentors, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, pets and whoever else who may have supported and encouraged you — nurtured and sustained you, cheered you up and calmed you down — during the many long years it took to get you to this point. And come on, let’s face it; it has been a difficult and sometimes rocky road. But you have made it. You have earned it. You are in a select club. Congratulations!

First, a few statistics. Your group of 168 graduates is the world in microcosm. Though most, not surprisingly, are from the United States, others are from Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Spain and Taiwan. In a world population of almost 8 billion, the percentage of Ph.D.s must be infinitesimal. But I’m an historian. I trust the engineers and the mathematicians to run the numbers.

Traditionally, the person in my position is expected to impart some wisdom. That’s a tough assignment. But I teach World War II, and in stories I tell about that terrible, necessary conflict, I have discovered a few lessons. Allow me to elaborate on two.

The first happened not on the battlefield but here at Purdue on the football field. Now, Purdue has had some fine football teams in the past, but we have never been considered a year-in, year-out national power. In fact, in 1942, the fall after the December bombing of Pearl Harbor, the team’s record under first-year coach Elmer Burnham was a dismal 1 win and 8 losses. Not good. And with male students trading civilian clothes for uniforms, there was considerable doubt whether there would even be a 1943 team. In fact, only one player from the 1942 team returned for summer practice in 1943.

But America’s rapidly expanding war machine needed college-educated lieutenants and ensigns, and colleges and universities around the nation were training them by the thousands. As part of the Navy V-12 program, Purdue was chosen to prepare Navy and Marine junior grade officers for war. From colleges around the Midwest, young men enrolled in the program — many of them college football players. Eight came from the University of Illinois, seven from University of Missouri, five from the University of Iowa, and more from other schools, including one from Indiana University. I choose to think that he was a mascot of some sort.

Then — through some wartime alchemy — these boys who had been opponents the year before became a cohesive team. Led by running back Tony Butkovich, they won their first game against a powerful opponent — and they kept winning, ending the season with a thrilling 7-0 victory over rival Indiana. In the NFL draft after the season, Butkovich was selected in the first round by the Cleveland Rams. But he never played professional football. He was killed during the battle of Okinawa.

My message for you is to remember Purdue’s only undefeated football team — this team of rivals who came together for one more season in the sun before heading off to war. In your life, I hope you can discover the 1+1=3 power of teamwork. I’m sure many of you already have.

My second story occurred in December 1944 during the last winter of the war, in the rugged, frozen Ardennes Forest of Belgium. The Western Allied troops were bedded down for the winter, waiting for spring, to launch an offensive that would end the war. They assumed the Germans were preparing for the same assault.

But Col. Oscar Koch, Gen. George Patton’s G-2, was bothered by something. Now a G-2 is the Army’s designation for an intelligence officer, and it is his job to gather data, interpret it, and predict the enemy’s designs. To be sure, the Allies had notice troop and material movements behind the German lines — normal activity for an army stiffening its defenses. But what troubled Koch the most was the passivity of the frontline German defenses. In the past, when units of Patton’s 3rd Army had made a small push against the German line, the Germans had pushed back. But now they weren’t. 

Gathering as much information as possible, Koch concluded that the enemy was up to something big — that they were, in fact, preparing for a surprise winter offensive. Patton agreed and took the information to the leaders manning the forces along the border between Germany and Belgium.

These leaders disagreed with Koch's assessment. They were men like Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower — intelligent, practical, committed to the military art of the possible. They — and their G-2s — looked at the evidence and rejected it as simply too foolhardy for the Germans to attempt. But Adolf Hitler, the supreme commander of the German forces, had prepared a desperate gamble.

In the end, Koch was right. On 16 December, the Germans attacked, beginning what is known as the Battle of the Bulge. The offensive lasted for more than a month and ended in an Allied victory — but not before America suffered 90,000 casualties.

The Lesson: Don’t just surround yourself with people who all think like you do. Such mirror thinking has its risks. Listen to a wide range of opinions. The person who thinks outside the box may — just may — have the right answer.

Thank You and Hail Purdue.