“We all knew it was coming, but it was still a terrible thing to hear...It was exactly what I had expected...serious propaganda and blatant lies,” said Michael J. Getlin ’05.

Mark T. Silvestri, president of the Harvard Republican Club, said that HIPJ members “are generally being shortsighted and closed to the real discussion of the issues.”

The club has planned a different response to the war: possibly rallying in support of troops and soliciting students to send cards to the troops after spring break.

“HRC sees it at this point, that war has begun and it is no longer a matter of whether or not we go to war. It’s a matter of whether or not we support the men and women who are fighting for this nation’s cause,” Silvestri said.

Gathering together last night for a regular board meeting, members of the HRC watched Bush’s announcement together in Loker Commons.

“It was a statement of what we knew already had to happen. So the tone was somber, but confident,” Silvestri said.

Even for those who did not closely watch Bush’s speech, it was a night for discussion.

Groups of first-years traveling from House to House last night in the hopes of ensuring the ideal abode for the next three years stopped to discuss the war.

“I am disappointed that our president failed so miserably at diplomatic efforts,” said Andrew C. Stillman ’06, campus outreach director of the College Democrats.

Soldiers in Cambridge

For some students, the war is more than a distant threat.

For the approximately 50 Harvard undergraduates participating in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the war presents the possibility that they might have to join the conflict and promotes a stronger connection to those fighting abroad.

The war also means that hostility directed toward the military in general could spill over into ROTC ranks, yet the cadets still met Bush’s speech with confident support.

None of the ROTC members will have to go abroad this year, since the period of enlistment begins after graduation. And most, judging by the length of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, are not very worried about the call to arms.

“This is not really an issue to me. I don’t think about it too much,” said Jeffrey C. Munns ’03, a midshipman and president of Harvard’s National Defense Forum, a group dedicated to discussing issues of the national military.