Get Herald RSSLike many Brunonians, I came to Brown concerned about my ability to fit in because of something in my background. Six short months before sitting in graduate student orientation, I was in Iraq. The preceding months had been full of transitions. I missed the challenge, hard work, and tight camaraderie of the Army. Could I find that at Brown? Brown has a reputation for being anti-military. It also has a reputation for being open-minded. I was about to find out which held more truth.
Sometimes I'd sit on the steps of Faunce House and the masses of students with heavy backpacks looked strikingly similar to the soldiers I'd just left. The arbitrary nature troubled me. These two groups of people, disparate now, might have grown up down the street from each other or attended the same high schools.
Small influences and small decisions had added up, and now these two groups of 18-22 year olds were in very different places. Indeed, there was little to explain how I ended up with a foot in each world. I was raised by liberal academics who taught me to act nonviolently. It took an airplane crashing into the Pentagon, four miles away from me, to convince me that I was sick of other people fighting for what I believed. I dropped out of college and joined the Army.
At the time, I got the good end of the deal. After a year, I went back to college, paid for by the Army. It seemed impossible that I would leave for more than my monthly drills. America is structured so we can't go to war without the National Guard or the draft. I felt America would not allow its youth to be sent to an unjust war
What a difference two years can make. Packing up my dorm room in the middle of my senior year of college, knowing that I would soon be in combat, I faced questions that every soldier has heard as a result of two unpopular wars. Even at an elite school, the level of ignorance stunned me. "They can't deploy you, you're in college." "You're a girl! They can't send you to Iraq!" and the hardest to respond to, "I thought only poor people were in the Army."
When had America developed a warrior class? When had joining the military, possibly one of the most physically, emotionally and morally grueling means of service to society, become something we pushed off to the racial minorities and economically unprivileged? I thought of my generation as one that believed in service. This service, one that at some level protected our rights, had become something that the educated or middle class didn't do.
When I got to Brown, I anticipated more questions like the ones I'd left. With the liberal reputation, I didn't know what to expect. I did not, to my relief, encounter unreasoned hatred or blatant disregard for my choices.
I did encounter a prevailing unawareness about the military, an disconnectedness to our country at war, or misunderstandings about why people join. I struggled to explain it. At times I felt isolated. Who could understand the problems that I was having with the Veterans Affairs Administration or how I felt when I saw a friend's name in the casualty column of the newspaper?
I began to look past the stereotype that Brown was anti-military and found another tradition. There was the WWI arch on Thayer or the memorials in Manning and University Halls. I found the letters that President Faunce had sent to the Brown men in WWI, lauding their service. Brown was home to the first Naval ROTC unit in the country. The RUE program was started especially to help veterans go back to college. The number of Brunonians in the military wasn't a small minority: 500 had died in combat, over 300 living Brown alums chose military service after graduation, and over 60 members of the faculty and staff are vets.
Nor are students necessarily anti-military. The more I spoke about my service, the more support I found. The number of student veterans is small, but many of our fellow students are involved through their families and friends. Some are interested in joining or want to know how to support troops even if they don't support the war.
On Tuesday, there were at least 50 people on the Main Green for Brown's Veterans Day Observance. I was not surprised by how large the turnout was. For those at Brown who are involved in or support the military: You are not alone.
I don't expect everyone to pat me on the back. If I could ask anything, I would like people to appreciate that in America, military service is a choice. Like so many students who have lived overseas, I have a deep appreciation that a place like Brown can exist. Differences of opinion are welcomed and expressing them does not threaten your safety. We don't have a draft and we don't have universal conscription. I love that we have the freedom to choose between school and war. People like me volunteer to serve so those protesting on the green won't be forced to.
I want to protect that choice. Indeed, it's what I believe I'm in the Army to fight for.
Miranda Summers GS is a master's student in the American Civilization department.
is a member of the 
