Veterans on Campus

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) recently linked to an interesting post by Walter Russell Mead (Via Meadia) on the low number of veterans as students at ivy league schools. Specifically, Mead points out that Princeton has just four -- 4 -- veterans out of an 8,000 strong student body. I emailed Reynolds and Mead and asked them if they had any sense in their experience in academia regarding veterans as professors, since I am a veteran of the Marine Corps and am just finishing up my PhD in philosophy and am trying to find employment, but am also aware that some quarters of the academic world see the military as an unmitigated evil and would not look kindly towards hiring someone who has been in the military and is not ashamed of it. Understandably, both men are simply too busy to respond to every such request. So if there is anyone in the academic world who reads this blog, please feel free to leave a comment or email me. In fact, Mead links to an essay written by Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt who has a son in the Marines and imagines the benefits that veterans could contribute to academic life:

Imagine what can be contributed by someone with notions of honor, solidarity and selfless service rarely encountered in the civilian world.

Imagine what insight might be had from someone who has had to work with people of a foreign culture, often under trying conditions.

And imagine what distinct moral perspectives could be offered in a seminar on ethics, on the University’s discipline committee or in a dean’s office by someone who may have had to make profoundly troublesome ethical choices under fire, in split seconds.

So since Reynolds and Mead were too busy, perhaps Reinhardt, the father of a Marine, might be able to respond to a former Marine with a few questions about veterans in academia.