Subject: Truman Fellows on Cover of TIME Magazine
From: "Truman Project" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:20:54 -0400 (EDT)

[http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=e8ZajDEf7xeJDw%2BhAzJTkn5qYtCdfxyK]

In this week's TIME Magazine,  Joe Klein interviews Truman Vice President Michael Breen[http://www.trumanproject.org/about/people/staff/michael-breen] and Truman Fellows Rye Barcott[http://www.trumanproject.org/programs/fellowship/people/rye-barcott], David Callaway[http://www.trumanproject.org/programs/fellowship/people/david-w-callaway-md-mpa], Seth Moulton[http://www.trumanproject.org/programs/fellowship/people/seth-moulton], and Liz McNally[http://www.trumanproject.org/programs/fellowship/people/elizabeth-mcnally] for his article, "The New Greatest Generation," about a growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who are returning home and dedicating themselves to lives of public service.

From the story:

Truman Fellow Liz McNally featured on the cover of TIME's "The New Greatest Generation" story.

And Petraeus, in many ways, is their  spiritual father. He has surrounded himself with military intellectuals from the  service academies, like Liz McNally, a tiny  West Point graduate and Rhodes scholar  who did a tour in Baghdad at the age of  24, running a platoon of military police  officers, and later became the general’s  speech writer. Or Seth Moulton, a Marine  captain who had been the Harvard class-of-2001 commencement speaker and became particularly adept at working with  Iraqis to organize construction projects.  “Petraeus was an amazing boss,” Moulton  says. “Our mission was to defeat the military bureaucracy. We were able to build  border forts, using Iraqi ¬engineers and  work crews, for one-fifth the price that  the American contractors were charging  and in one-third the time. Our proposals went right to his desk, rather than  through the bureaucracy. The only thing he demanded of us was success.”

Moulton, McNally and other activist  veterans have stayed in touch since leaving the service. After years of watching  them in action downrange and back home,  I can pretty much spot them on sight: fit,  smart, confident and strong. They look  you straight in the eye when they talk;  they can be funny as hell, but their language isn’t fancy. “There’s a special bond  among those of us who came from privileged educational backgrounds and chose  to serve,” says Moulton. “We’re a group  that really wants to see America become a  better place. We hate the divisive politics  of the baby-boom generation. They’re running the country into the ground.” That’s  another lovely thing about these veterans:  they don’t mince words.
 
[...]

Public-Service Warriors
More than a few of the veterans who  are doing extraordinary things were altruists before they joined the military. Seth Moulton, the Harvard valedictorian, decided to join the Marines because it was  he “purest form of service,” even though his mother told Boston magazine she initially thought that “there was no career  choice he could have made that would  have made me more unhappy, except if  he had chosen a life of crime.” Rye Barcott decided to prepare for his stint in the  Marines by visiting the enormous Kibera  slum in Kenya—he speaks Swahili—and  writing his senior thesis at the University of North Carolina about ethnic differences there. Eventually, Barcott found  himself simultaneously serving as an  intelligence officer in Iraq and launching  a nongovernmental program in Kibera,  which featured interethnic soccer teams  and a health clinic. Eric Greitens decided  to become a Navy SEAL when he visited  Rwanda after the genocide, which he believed could easily have been prevented by  a careful use of military force.

[...]

“You’re a Marine Captain. Figure It Out.”
It will be decades before we find out if these veterans will prove, as Petraeus believes, the next great generation of  American leaders. “It will be a phenomenal waste if 10 years from now, we turn  out to be just another interest group,  limiting ourselves to veterans’ issues,”  says Michael Breen, vice president of  the Truman National Security Project,  which has provided a home in the Democratic Party for returning veterans with  a desire for public service. Breen need  not worry too much. The vets are just  beginning to understand the value of  the skills they have to offer, the amazing  things they may be able to accomplish  as civilians. In the coming years, people like Eric Greitens, Wes Moore and Liz  McNally may run for office; an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran, or two, may someday be elected President—and he or she  will bring to office the sense of grace under pressure, of purposeful leadership  that comes from service in combat, an  experience that none of the baby-boom  Presidents have had.

For now, just listening to them talk  about their experiences is thrilling. Seth  Moulton returned from his last tour  working for Petraeus in 2007 and did  a joint master’s program at Harvard’s  Business School and Kennedy School of  Government. He and his friend David Callaway, a former combat surgeon who  was then affiliated with the Harvard  Medical Faculty Physicians, were sitting  together at a Truman Project conference  when Callaway got word of the Haiti  earthquake. Harvard wanted him to organize a team of doctors to help out. “I  turned to Seth and said, ‘I need you to  go down there and start organizing logistics,’” Callaway told me. “Seth said,  ‘I don’t know anything about medical  logistics.’ And I told him, ‘Seth, you’re a Marine captain. Figure it out.’”
 
Full text of the article is available here.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089337,00.html]
 
 The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Truman National Security Project or Educational Institute.

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