SIPA’s Military Veterans Share Their Stories

A panel of veterans will discuss their experiences in the military at the upcoming event “Beer and War Stories,” which will take place in Alice’s Café (6th floor, IAB) at 6 p.m. today (Thursday, April 2). There is a $10 cover charge; guests can partake of beer and pizza.

Ken Wolf MIA ’16, a U.S. military veteran who organized the event, talked to SIPA News about the event and its goals.

How did “Beer and War Stories” originate?

It has actually evolved a bit over the last couple of months. Initially, we were looking to put together an event to get SIPA veterans together, but we realized that would be a very small event.

So we decided to look for a way to reach out to the rest of the SIPA community. We wanted to create something that would be interesting and engaging for SIPA’s future policymakers.

We call it “Beer and War Stories,” but that’s tongue-in-cheek. The intent is to challenge people’s concepts of what war stories are.

How so?

We’re not looking to tell combat stories. We’re not denying the combat experience, but that’s not the story that we’re telling.

We’re going to have a panel of four or five veterans currently at SIPA who will talk about what they did in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. The idea is to convey the perspective that, while combat is a part of [serving], the everyday experience that most veterans have is something else. We’re going to talk about the day-to-day aspirations, building relationships with local government, bringing community leaders into the process. Development projects, infrastructure development, international organizations are all involved in this.

The intent is to show SIPA students who have no interest in the military, or its mission, that at some point, paths will cross. [In the military] we do a lot more than go out and fight people.

What is your own military experience?

I’m still in the [Army] Reserve, for more years than I’d like to admit [laughs]. It’s 18 years in July. So I’ve pretty much been everywhere. My first deployment was as one of the last few UN peacekeepers in Bosnia. I have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of other joint operations.

What do you expect to talk about in terms of your own experiences outside of combat?

For me specifically, the day-to-day stuff was going out and getting out in the community and identifying community leaders to enlist their support. Especially in Iraq, we had to figure things out from the ground up. It’s difficult to talk about it because of the scope of it.

In 2003, there was no insurgency. We went in [and] the push to Baghdad was over fairly quickly. We thought let’s put something back together, we’ll be out of here before long. So we identified community leaders, set up meetings with leaders, identified areas of influence, brought infrastructure projects.

There’s a perception, really a misconception, that all veterans at SIPA concentrate in International Security Policy [ISP]. Can you speak to that?

Well, it certainly is a stereotype. It seems like a natural path for veterans to follow, and definitely the majority [of veterans at SIPA] are in ISP. But we also have several veterans who are in other concentrations—Human Rights [and Humanitarian Policy], for instance. I think the issue with the stereotype is that it’s like actors who get typecast: “Oh you can’t do anything else, you don’t know about anything else.” And it’s not true.

Why did you choose ISP?

After experiencing these wars and seeing the effects on the ground, the veteran community, and the people in these countries, I want to take those experience and use it to change policy. It’s the policy developers that send military in. So I want to use my experience to see what can we do to prevent future wars, apply better policy, and not have these things happen.

What do you want attendees to take away from the event?

Really, what I want is for people who are not in ISP or ICR and not involved in related clubs to have a better understanding of what the military’s mission is.

Whatever their interests are, whether it’s human rights or conflict resolution or something else, there is some overlap. Whether you agree with the military or not, you’ll likely run into them somewhere, and it’s worth knowing how they operate.

There’s been some pushback [in response to this event] — “I’m not interested in that,” or “I don’t agree with the military.” Taking the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan, whether or not you agree with the decision, once the decision has been made, it’s up to all of us to deal with the aftermath. The UN is there, NGOs are there, and we need to agree on how to deal with it, and work together.

This interview, conducted by Tamara El Waylly MIA ’15, has been lightly edited for clarity.

Photo courtesy Ted Janis MIA ’13. Please note that the photo does not portray Ken Wolf or other current students.