Treatment of Veterans is a Test of U.S. Response to 9/11, Says Policy School Dean

Ten Years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States faces a test in how it treats its veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bruce Kuniholm, dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, said in an "Office Hours" interview Thursday.

"We have a moral and legal obligation to care for them," said Kuniholm, himself a Vietnam War veteran. "If we're going to ask them to go to war for policies that we as policymakers make, then we damn well better take care of them."

Watch the full "Office Hours" conversation.

While conceding that the country might not have the political appetite for it, Kuniholm said mandatory national service could provide increased solidarity among veterans and citizens who do not volunteer for the military.

"The fact is you could still have a volunteer military within the context of national service that was obligatory across the board," he said. "It would give people a better sense of their obligations to the country as a whole and give them a stake in the foreign policy of the United States."

Kuniholm was joined by his son Jonathan, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Iraq War veteran. 

In response to a viewer question about families with military legacies, Jonathan Kuniholm said he would not pressure his son, now 11 years old, to eventually join the military. 

"Clearly, if we ask that commitment of anybody, we should at least considering make that commitment ourselves," he said. 

About 2,500 people tuned in to the live webcast interview on Duke's Ustream channel.