The Star Tribune's Lori Sturdevant interviewed four veterans of the Afghnaistan and Iraq War in today's paper, two each from the DFL and RPM. The younger men, Andrew Borene and Andy Davis, talk of experiences in country; the older vets, Bob Dettmer and Tim Walz, focus on the connection between their service and teaching, and of the high caliber of the young people they've served with in the military.
On teaching and military service:
Unlike veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, these vets were all volunteers in uniform. They say filing for office felt much the same as signing up with Uncle Sam. The two who are also teachers -- Walz and Dettmer -- think of their whole careers as a single piece.
Dettmer: As a teacher, you are a servant. You have to have a servant's character to stay in education. You serve the public, you serve the students. As a military officer, you serve your country. As a politician, you'd better be a servant. If you're not, you're in it for the wrong reasons, and it's time to get out of it.
Walz: I always saw this from a servant leadership perspective. You do these things. You serve, and the military is just one of the ways you serve. There are many other ways ... . What I'm doing now is just one more piece. It's about trying to give back, trying to make a better community, trying to do the things that I think are required of us as citizens.
On young people:
Walz, 42, and Dettmer, 55, said they draw their optimism from the calibre of the young people they met in the military. (Borene is 31; Davis, 25.)
Dettmer: They are dedicated, talented and focused on their mission. We've got to project a servant attitude about what we do in the world, and that's what these young soldiers want, too.
Walz: I'm incredibly optimistic. I think what will come out of this [period in U.S. history] is a whole new group of leadership that is going to believe in transparent, responsible, receptive government. Not one based on ideological principles, but based on measurable principles that are good for this nation -- on what will actually make this nation safer. A strength of shared commitment will come out of this.
Sturdevant quotes Walz on working for common interests:
At the end of the day, partisanship doesn't matter. People are what matters.
Walz: What happens in the military is that collective good, that social contract that we are all in this together. It's the idea that we all do better when we join together. Government is an extension of the best we do together.
I'm absolutely convinced that this experience can be carried over [into government] -- that sense of teamwork and commitment to solving problems and putting our political differences aside. You put those aside in the military to complete the mission. We can do the same thing in our schools. We can do the same thing in our counties. We can do the same thing with transportation, and so on.
An interesting read.
Walz, a retired National Guard command sargeant, served in Italy with his battalion in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Dettmer, a chief ward officer for the U.S. Army Reserves at the time, worked with with satellite operations for military intelligence at Camp Doha, which provides combat support in Kuwait.
Borene served in the invasion of Iraq as a Marine in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as did Davis, an Army Ranger who was awarded a Bronze Star, who also served two combat tours in Afghanistan. This isn't the first time they've paired up on the page of a major paper; in early March, they co-authored this op-ed piece asking for restrictions on protests at funerals, after Fred Phelps' fanatical followers picketed the services for Cpl. Andrew Kemple in Anoka.
In the online [added modifier--see update] piece, Sturdevant doesn't give details about the vets' service branches, deployments, nor does she distinguish between combat veterans and those who served in combat support or support missions. Journalists should be more accurate about this.
OLLIE OX UPDATE: A loyal BSP reader informed me that in the print edition of the Star Tribune, the service records of the four interviewees were made clear in the captions of photos that accompanied the article. The post above was based on the online edition. The Strib obviously didn't intend to confuse readers. My apology.
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