Robert Murray’s draft notice arrived after his first year at Harvard Business School in 1969. At 22 years old, the Tuckahoe, N.Y., native enlisted in the Army for what he hoped would be a 24-month stint. Then he would finish his MBA.

But the Army, swollen by the draft, needed officers for its men. Murray’s superiors sensed that he was sharp, so they sent him to the Officer Candidate School in Fort Knox, Ky., to become a non-commissioned officer. After ten weeks of training, Murray was promoted to staff sergeant — a sign that he was in the top 5 percent of his class. In November 1969, he deployed to South Vietnam.

Seven months later, Murray and his squad were in Hiep Duc Valley, a jungle 35 miles south of Da Nang, searching for an enemy mortar position. During the hunt, a soldier stepped on a wire connected to a booby trap. If he lifted his foot, he would trigger a grenade. In despair, he called for his comrades to take cover. But before he could move, Murray shoved him aside and jumped onto the grenade. His body absorbed the blast, killing him instantly but saving his men.

Staff Sergeant Murray never got his MBA, but he earned a higher distinction. In August 1974, Pres. Gerald Ford posthumously awarded him the Medal of Honor.

Philip Keith recounts Murray’s heroism in his book Crimson Valor: Harvard Alumni and the Medal of Honor. Murray is one of 17 Harvardians who have received the Medal of Honor — the most recipients from any civilian university. And today, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the eleventh year of this century, their alma mater will honor them by rededicating a plaque with their names at its Memorial Church.

For Harvard, it has been a year of rededication — a year of renewal. In 1969, it kicked the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps off its campus in protest against the Vietnam War. After the war, it remained mum on the subject until 1993, when Congress passed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Harvard then argued that it could not allow what it considered a discriminatory organization on its campus, and it stuck to that policy for 17 years (though it did allow its students to do ROTC training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

But once Congress repealed DADT in December, Harvard, under the leadership of Pres. Drew Faust, changed course. In March, Faust signed an agreement with the Naval ROTC, and the corps opened a satellite office on campus in September. (Harvard’s cadets still travel to MIT for their weekly instruction, as the lack of critical mass precludes the military from establishing a full presence on the Harvard campus.) The university currently is engaged in talks to extend recognition to the Army and Air Force ROTCs.

Other elite universities have fallen into line. In April, Stanford’s faculty voted to invite the program back to campus. In May, Columbia signed an agreement with Naval ROTC. Yale did the same later that month.

But Harvard isn’t merely recognizing its cadets, it’s embracing them. Faust continues to attend the commissioning ceremony in June, a tradition her predecessor Larry Summers began. Last month, the university hosted a reception for veterans. And the Office of Career Services hosted a panel on military careers a few weeks ago.

“There was nothing like this before,” says Prof. Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College. “It just wouldn’t have happened.”

The students themselves have become more interested in military service, says Erik Malmstrom, a student at the business school. He attributes the renewed interest to a heightened sense of patriotism among the students, who grew up in the age of September 11. “The current level of veterans on Harvard’s campus is at its highest since the post–World War II era,” he says.

Jonas Akins, a business-school student who graduated from Harvard College in 2001, agrees. “When I was here in 1997–2001, the military didn’t have a particularly positive or negative impression among the students; it simply wasn’t considered,” he says. He and Malmstrom have founded a club of graduate-school veterans called Crimson Serves. And Akins notices a larger military contingent among his classmates. Estimating there to be about 45 veterans in his business-school class of 900 students, he concludes, “There’s definitely a larger presence.”

Not that Harvard’s climate, whether welcoming or aloof, really affected the cadets’ decisions. They chose to serve. “I had decided to join ROTC well before I was aware that Harvard would recognize the program,” says Joseph Brennan, a freshman in Harvard NROTC.

The cadets’ determination is reassuring, but so is their university’s newfound hospitality.

— Brian Bolduc is an editorial associate at National Review.