As Harvard students in 1973, we supported a student petition drive for a referendum on whether to reinstate the ROTC military officers training at Harvard, on which the Globe recently reported (“At Harvard, Garland asked for debate over ROTC ban,’’ Page A1, March 19). The context for the petition was overwhelming youth opposition to the Vietnam War, which helps explain how we were able to get signatures from half of Harvard’s undergraduate student body in short order. And for good reason: It was an illegal war that killed tens of thousands of Americans and well over a million Vietnamese, about half of them civilians, in a profound waste of human life. The war was ended by determined nonviolent protest, including resistance to the draft and to universities’ role in providing the armed forces with additional personnel.

The article says that a democratic student vote on the ROTC issue probably would have been “divisive’’; in fact, our society was already divided by a war that would have continued if the public had not spoken out against it.

We are proud that we were part of that effort; we continue to work in varied ways for the same values we held then.

Bill Gardner, Ottawa

Cole Harrison, Roslindale

Jennifer Helmick, Salem

This letter was cosigned by four other students who were at Harvard in 1973.