On Tuesday night, David Gergen moderated a forum at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government that featured five Harvard veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The event was billed as a special tribute to the roughly 100 veterans of those wars who are currently enrolled at the Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and the audience was overwhelmingly supportive of the troops, if not their mission–at least there was no visible evidence of antiwar sentiment. The evening began with a moment of silence for those who had given their lives in the service of their country and featured a uniformed ROTC color guard, rifles and all, which, despite the nature of the event, seemed somewhat out of place given that Harvard hasn’t allowed ROTC on its campus since the late 1960s. Once the discussion got underway, the soldiers and Marines on stage pulled no punches in addressing the situation on the ground, even though Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was sitting right in the front row. One Marine, who had been severly wounded in Ramadi, spoke about his unit’s role in the Iraqi elections of October 2005–the polling station was attacked 9 times and only 12 votes were cast. In the next election in December, his unit stayed away from the polls and more than 50,000 votes were cast. Another Marine, Captain Maura Sullivan, had served in Falluja. She spoke eloquently about the challenges of being a female officer in a combat zone, but her tone belied her claim that gender wasn’t an issue. She was simply more passionate, emotional, and empathetic than the other speakers. I don’t think women should serve in combat, but I walked away from the event thinking that such traits would be an asset more than a liablity. Gergen himself was downbeat on our chances for success in Iraq, and kept asking the troops questions that were framed by references to “crumbling support at home.” But the soldiers and Marines insisted that they “didn’t pay attnetion to what was going on outside” Iraq. And there was some support among them for the surge. Of course, in the People’s Republic of Cambridge, an event conceived with the sole purpose of honoring the service of Harvard’s students and alums could not pass without the expression of some antimilitary (though not antiwar) sentiment. What was surprising, however, was that that sentiment came not from students, or faculty, but a member of the press. It was left to Don MacGillis, who identified himself as a reporter for the Boston Globe, to ask these junior officers why it was that the military had not yet integrated homosexuals into its ranks. As the Harvard Crimson reported, “after some in the audience gasped and murmured, panelists responded that they were uninvolved with decisions to implement such policies.” The troops handled it well, though Gergen, who was at the White House when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was implemented, defended the policy as something that had represented real progress at the time. He also said that he thought homosexuals would likely be integrated into the military by the next administration. It was a pleasure to see just how bright and capable these junior officers were, and one couldn’t help but be impressed by their uniform desire to get back to their comrades in Iraq. Funny enough, they all seemed to consider Harvard to be a tougher duty than combat–they spoke of the intense guilt they felt at leaving their buddies behind. But if Harvard has embraced these veterans returned from combat, it still shuns those who would follow in their footsteps. Harvard undergrads have to make the trek to MIT to serve in ROTC, their service honored only when they make a useful prop for Kennedy School forums.
