Members of the College Republicans at Marquette University were forced to dismantle a booth sponsoring the “Adopt a Sniper” program Jan. 31 during Marquette Mission Week.
Marquette spokesperson Brigid O’Brien said school officials found the booth not in accordance with Catholic values or the Marquette Mission Week’s theme of “constructing peace.” Mission Week is a series of events intended to reflect on the university’s mission statement.
However, “Adopt a Sniper” program coordinator Brian Sain said the Texas-based organization is dedicated to aiding ill-equipped snipers in Iraq.
UW College Republicans Chair Nicole Marklein said the program was not something the student political organization sponsored nationwide. However, she said, it is not necessarily a fair decision on Marquette’s side.
“That’s not necessarily sitting with free speech … [but] since it’s a private university, they can do that,” Marklein said.
Despite the College Republicans’ apparent desire to help support troops in Iraq, many individuals, including Marquette’s Office of Student Development, were alarmed with their choice of display.
A slogan displayed on the booth, “One shot, one kill, no remorse, I decide,” was one of several “non-Catholic themes” the OSD sought to remove from campus grounds. However, Marquette College Republican Chair Brandon Henak said the OSD took the slogan out of context, and that it refers to another meaning altogether.
“It is similar to the U.S. Marines’ slogan ‘Semper Fidelus,'” Henak said.
Henak said the booth was open for an hour before it was removed from the Alumni Memorial Union.
“We were shut down and told not to continue,” Henak said.
The decision to remove the booth was not a welcome by all since Henak and the College Republicans decided it was appropriate for the Mission Week’s theme of “constructing peace.”
According to Henak, supporting the “Adopt a Sniper” program was a worthy one, because students knew their money was going towards a portion of the military that caused very few collateral deaths.
“[Snipers offer] no collateral damage and no innocents killed,” Henak said. “We chose admission week because it was the best way to construct peace.”
According to Henak, snipers in Iraq are in need of more effective equipment for their field of combat.
“Standard issue equipment does not allow them the mobility to sharp shoot, and they often have to take them off,” Henak said. “What we wanted to be able to do was to help protect them, and to help raise funds for that organization.”
The sniper organization’s involvement in the Iraqi war has helped raise more than $300,000 and is helping support 108 platoons of snipers.
Still, O’Brien said the College Republicans were not completely exact in their intentions when they proposed a “Support the Troops”-type event. O’Brien said the OSD was not aware that the College Republicans would be supporting the “Adopt a Sniper” program.
“For people seeing [the slogans] with no other context, [there’s an issue],” O’Brien said. “Without context, without discussion — that [booth] really wasn’t appropriate.”
Although Marklein said free speech was a main issue, she said she would not tell people the motto in question.
“It would be interesting to see if something like that happened at a public university,” Marklein added.
