A Crimson Call of Duty: Student Soldiers

They entered the shack in twos. Despite the 100-plus degree temperature, all were covered from head to toe in garb ranging from burkas to more modern clothing paired with headscarves.

A few carried with them everything they owned with their children in tow: small animals, powdered milk and soap to sell at the market, brightly-colored plastic bags emblazoned with Disney characters, and even one kitchen sink.

The women got out of their cars, separated from the men, and lined up outside the enclosed hut. They held their arms out and turned around as they were patted down—a routine their young children playfully imitated—and their purses and bags were examined.

It was September 2005. As most Harvard students donned sweatshirts and hurried to their first classes of the year, Tayla C. Havice ’10 was searching female Iraqis for weapons at a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Fallujah clad in full desert camouflage (flack jacket and two firearms included).

“One of my first days, I went to search a woman, and she started crying. My search partner—who was more experienced—[said] just take of your helmet and show her your hair,” Havice said. When Havice removed her Kevlar helmet to reveal her sweat-soaked bun, the woman “immediately sort of relaxed,” Havice said.

Havice enrolled at the College in 2001, but she left Cambridge to join the Marine Corps following her freshman year.

“It was right after Sept. 11, which really gives a sense of purpose for my whole generation of the military,” Havice said. “I was also kind of restless in college…college just didn’t feel like what I needed to do at the time.”

After five years of active duty—featuring tours in Southeast Asia, Iraq, and most recently Afghanistan—the 24-year-old has returned to Harvard, now a sophomore in Leverett House, as one of a select group of non-commissioned officers allowed leave by the Marines to complete their degrees while becoming commissioned in a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program.

Though students like Havice are a minority on campus, only around 30 participate in ROTC programs at all, she is among a small group of members of the Harvard community that have served in Iraq over the past five years. A number still remain abroad.

And while preppy college students may seem an immeasurable distance away from burka-clad women with tribal tattoos across their faces, soldiers say that Harvard has found a place in Iraq, and Iraq a place at Harvard.

‘A MODERN DAY THUCYDIDES’

Joseph S. Linhart ’03 said he fancied himself a “modern day Thucydides” during his year-long deployment in Iraq, keeping a journal of his life between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

“[Harvard] made me more nerdy,” said Linhart, who was a History concentrator while at Harvard. “There was a part of me that extricated myself from the situation...to think how many armies marched across these very sands—it was sort of the academic in me coming out.”

Linhart said he signed his contract with the Army on March 20, 2003: the day American soldiers invaded Iraq.

He was a fire support officer working on non-lethal targeting of the Iraqi people, meaning that he was responsible for “winning the hearts and minds” of the citizenry by going door to door to find out what was lacking in the community and attempt to bring those amenities to Diyara, the town where he spent eight of his twelve months.

In Diyara, Linhart worked to construct a town government—using only a bit of creativity and what he had learned in Government 20: “Introduction to Comparative Politics” with professor Steven R. Levitsky. Linhart said that Levitsky espoused the importance of institution building in creating lasting political systems throughout his class.

“It’s not enough to remove the terrorists—you need to get people to understand, [to invest] themselves in the government,” Linhart said. “You’re trying to get them to understand the mechanisms of government...to create a lasting, long-term effect.”

Linhart said that people may consider Harvard incompatible with the military—that those who enter the service are “wasting their talent.” But he characterized the institution-building process as “academic,” adding that people often think of the military as a “bunch of dumb linemen running into each other,” when in fact, “it’s a very cerebral and complicated game.”

Back at Harvard, Havice said that the fact that students join ROTC “never ceases to amaze” her.

“They’re sitting here in college, looking at their job options, and the salary gap is pretty impressive between a military officer and the companies that they’d be looking at,” Havice said. “And they’re sitting here choosing the military for love of country.”

Peter H. Brooks ’06, who is still in Iraq with the Marines, wrote in an e-mail that at this point in the war, much of the military experience is in the peacekeeping and humanitarian realms, requiring some political and cultural sensitivity that Harvard has helped him gain.

“In this stage of the war where most people are innocent and interested in just going about their daily lives, Harvard helped me appreciate and respect the concerns of locals,” Brooks wrote. “It also meant I got a lot of flack from my Marines (my call-sign was Crimson6).”

BACK FROM THE FRONT

There is one thing soldiers who return from Iraq tend to agree on—there is no such thing as a typical day during deployment, and nothing is simple.

“You just have to be as disciplined as possible—not allowing yourself to become complacent,” said Maximilian T. Nitze ’11, who joined the freshman class this January after finishing his second Marine deployment in Iraq. “It can become awfully boring, nothing is going on, and out of nowhere, things escalate extremely quickly.”

Despite the absence of traditional combat and constant violence during the later stages of the war, the prospects of IED attacks, direct fire from insurgents, and mortar attack still loom.

“Wars are these extended periods of nothingness punctuated by periods of chaos,” said Lt. Col. Darry C. Johnson, a 27-year army veteran who is now a national security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. “The tension is palpable, the danger is palpable…You’re very much on edge—it’s very difficult to relax.”

Johnson described his dislike for having his back toward a door and his habit of constantly “scanning” while on the T.

A long series of deployments also puts a strain on Johnson’s family life—in the seven and a half years he has been married to his wife, they have lived together for a total of only six months.

And the loss of soldiers in combat is “heartbreaking,” according to Lt. Colonel Todd S. Desgrosseilliers, also a Kennedy School fellow with 23 years under his belt in the Marine Corps.

“The Marines in my battalion were like my own sons,” Desgrosseilliers said. “It’s really important to sit down and talk about it—it’s like losing a member of your family.”

He stressed that he expects his men to have some emotional difficulty when they are forced to kill and when those around them are killed—“they’re not murderers, they’re warriors—that’s part of their job...and if you’re a moral person, that should bother you.”

To come to grips with this reality, he said it is important to focus on the sacrifice the men are making for their country and the overarching goal of providing a democratic society for Iraqi citizens—a goal that “overwhelmed” the purple-fingered Sunni women who passed through Havice’s checkpoint after voting in Iraq’s constitutional referendum of October 2005, the Ohio native said.

Voting, Havice said, was a “little piece of ownership in their country.”

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.

For comprehensive coverage of the Iraq War's impact at Harvard five years later, check out The Crimson's Iraq Supplement.