By Courtney JoynerSPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
As a part of a lecture series, Hofstra welcomed Iraq veteran Matt Howard to speak from a veteran’s perspective on foreign policy issues. Howard is the Co-director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a campaign to end combat in Iraq and assist returning servicemen and women. Series Co-directors Dr. Carolyn Eisenberg, Dr. Linda Longmire and Dr. Martin Melkonian organized these lectures to explore this topic in order to help students receive a well-rounded picture of what is actually happening in Iraq. From 2001 to 2006 Howard completed two tours in the Marine Corps. The experience shifted his views about the wars in the Middle East and American foreign policy. After attending University of California Berkeley, he launched the Right to Heal Initiative, which seeks to provide preventative measures for health impacts of veterans and Iraqis. “The whole overall approach of the series is to encourage civic involvement, civic awareness, political literary if you will,” Dr. Longmire, global studies and geography professor said. She hopes that it will encourage students to think about what the war means for everybody. Longmire stressed the importance of being informed. “So often these things are either historical or abstract,” she said. “This is something very real for students, they are the ones who pay the price of this war both in terms of their own bodies and also in terms of the monetary cost as well as the ultimate further destabilization of the world. So for students particularly, this takes on the kind of urgency that we feel that we need to address.” Howard sympathized with the lack of knowledge that seems to be among students. “I get it,” he said. “When I was 18, George Bush and Al Gore were running against each other and I could care less. I wasn’t paying attention to it, it didn’t seem like it affected me and it took me a little while to realize that it did in very real ways.” He continued to share some of the changes in personal views that formed from his tours, explaining issues such as war crimes and addressing what often happens to high ranking military personnel after service. “President Eisenhower, in his departing speech, really coined this term ‘the military industrial complex,’ who is one of two five-star generals and very very familiar with the way the military functioned,” Howard said, explaining that he “was very concerned about what had happened since WWII and the way that corporations – specifically corporations that are involved in the defense industry – the way that politicians, the way that high ranking military officers were all kind of in the same circles and benefiting each other.” These are the kinds of things Howard hopes to bring back into the spotlight as he speaks to audiences. “I think that one of the hopes is that because the war has now started a decent amount of time ago, about 15 years, that just to bring them into people’s kind of, for lack of better word, their radar.” According to freshman Kalil Griffin, that is just what Howard did. “I feel like it’s very easy to just listen to what the government has to say about these sorts of issues, but here you have someone that’s actually been there and how his mindset has actually changed going into it,” said Griffin. Peace Programs Coordinator for the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives Natasha Rappazzo said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone who was in the military say you don’t have to join the military to learn discipline, so that was really new for me.” Junior Tyler Sebastianelli said that other students “should [have] come because it was really informative [and] it affected our entire country and still will affect our country for probably many more years as it has in the past, it affects our families, friends, relatives.” Dr. Melkonian talked about war having a direct effect on students. “In any event to the degree that we escalate military involvement, and it sounds to some extent from the president’s new budget that just came out yesterday, that it’s pretty much what we’re heading towards.” said Melkonian. “And so what that is going to inevitably mean, cutbacks in other areas including things like education, student loans, healthcare, the environment, you name it. All those things are going to suffer to some degree. So it’s very important we make those judgments as to how we want to spend our money and our resources.”