Durham, NC - Their reasons for military service ranged from the promise of adventure to a spur of the moment impulse to rebel against parental authority, but five public policy graduate students who spoke at a Sanford School panel on Veterans' Day all agreed that being in the military had shaped their perspectives in many ways. All five panel members were deployed to Iraq during their military careers.

Sanford School Dean Bruce Kuniholm, who was a U.S. Marine rifle platoon commander during the Vietnam War, moderated the panel. It was organized by the Living Policy Forum, a student organization.

Kuniholm posed two questions for the veterans: what have you learned from your service and should there be mandatory public service in the United States, which could include non-military options such as AmeriCorps?

"Here we learn that where you stand depends on where you sit, and I sat really low," said Lee Reiners, MPP'11, who was in the Minnesota National Guard. Witnessing both good and bad decisions by leaders gave him an appreciation for the effects policies can have on people's lives. For Ryan Chevalier, MPP '10, an active-duty lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard, the most important thing was "learning to rely on the people around you, when you don't chose the mission or the people."

The student vets all said that national service shouldn't be compulsory, although it is valuable and should be encouraged through incentives. Kuniholm disagreed, seeing national service as a way of creating a stronger civic culture and developing America's intellectual capital through programs such as the G.I. Bill.

The audience of public policy graduate students and faculty questioned the veterans on a range of topics. Asked about the influence of embedded journalists during the Iraq war, Garth Weintraub, MPP '10, a former Navy SEAL, mentioned "an Iraqi general who was corrupt; it had been reported (to the leadership), but when it came out in print, he was fired in two days." During his third tour in Iraq, the only reporters with his unit were stringers. They were not as accurate as the embedded reporters working on the aircraft carrier during his other tours, said Rob Peterson, a jet pilot for the Marine Corps.

Matt Tonkin, MPP '11, served in the Army as an intelligence officer. He was concerned that military experience is becoming foreign to policymakers, as the volunteer army is dominated by troops drawn from urban minorities and rural whites. He cited the fact that only three Ivy League universities have ROTC programs, and said, "Your children will not be exposed to the military unless you do it."