This Friday, Duke will rededicate and update the war memorial located between the Chapel and the Divinity School. Fifty-four names will be added to the list of Duke alumni who have been killed in service to their country.
The oldest graduated in 1937, the most recent in 2002. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gen. Eric Shinseki, Grad ’76, will be the special guest speaker. Shinseki is perhaps best known for his candid testimony in the Senate in 2006, when he advised the U.S. government to send many more troops into Iraq than the Bush administration was planning to. But what will likely be on Shinseki’s mind as he helps dedicate the memorial will be how close he was to making the list of Duke’s honored dead—Shinseki stepped on a land mine as a soldier in Vietnam and survived, losing part of his foot.
The dedication has been several years coming. The Oct. 4 story in the Herald-Sun, “Duke to expand on veterans’ memorial,” asked why it took so long to collect all the names. Sterly Wilder, Duke’s associate vice president for alumni affairs, answered in the article that information on alumni’s military service just was not readily available. But that information should be well known! Military service shouldn’t be some hidden secret, unpublicized and only finally revealed upon death or memorial.
Maybe in between flashing action shots of Mario v. Donkey Kong, the screens in the Link could honor Dukies, both students and staff, currently serving in the military. Or maybe a more curricular action—because the U.S. has been at war for eight years, and we could very well be at war for eight more, maybe all Duke students should be required to take a class centering on current military engagements or on national service—is it really more important to take Writing 20 classes that often don’t teach students much about writing than it is to grapple with our military presence abroad or threats to prosperity at home?
Common theories in political science literature depict democracies as less willing to go to war because those who would be bearing the costs of war (the people) also have the power to influence policy (war-making). If that is true, then either the U.S. government is not a functioning democracy or the American people just don’t care enough. Assuming the latter is the real issue, could this indifference come from the moral uncertainties associated with Iraq? Does it stem from the recent failures and daunting mission ahead in Afghanistan? Are Americans just not vested enough?
At least one study from 2006 indirectly answers this last question. The 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. Only 37 percent of respondents could locate Iraq on a map. Only 12 percent could find Afghanistan. More than 5,000 U.S. soldiers have died in those two countries since the wars began.
What good is a memorial without active respect? Duke has supported some initiatives related to the wars, such as the American Grand Strategy speaker series. But there is still an utter lack of concrete institutional change. The world has been changing rapidly, and the U.S. has just not kept up. Can Duke?
Part of Duke’s mission statement reads, “To these ends, the mission of Duke University is to provide a superior liberal education to undergraduate students, attending not only to their intellectual growth but also to their development as adults committed to high ethical standards and full participation as leaders in their communities.” The statement goes on to list specific applications of ideal alumni’s leadership skills. Should we really produce future leaders who may have only engaged peripherally with our country’s current wars? There are a lot of other issues to care about too. But Iraq and Afghanistan should be singled out. The decision to go to war reflects on our national identity. The choice to deprive veterans of proper care when they return illuminates our collective failure. In a country that supposedly values life among liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we neglect our nation’s founding principles when we can so distance ourselves from those sacrificing their lives on our behalf.
National service doesn’t mean military service. Teaching geography in an underprivileged middle school in Detroit is just as commendable as serving in Iraq. But our country no longer values either service—just take a look at the expected salaries for the military and teaching professions. We must reevaluate our incentive structures, and maybe even our national mission, because we are increasingly becoming a nation of free-riders with no popular investment in those issues that should matter the most.
Until we come to terms with our national character, the new memorial at Duke will only be a collection of stone and metal, a dark reflection of what America is becoming.
Elad Gross is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Wednesday.
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