COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — A frank discussion about the Iraq War is happening this weekend at the National Infantry Museum just off the Fort Benning gates.
A symposium is co-sponsored by Columbus State University and started Friday morning.
This symposium resumes Saturday morning at 9 and concludes at about 4 in the afternoon at the National Infantry Museum off of South Lumpkin Road. The event is open to the public at no cost.
At this point – the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War – the conflict is passing from a current event into the history books.
And this two-day conference has brought scholars and warriors to the same room to discuss the war and the lessons learned.
Retired Col. Liam Collins is a warrior and a scholar.
Need proof?
In 2007 the Special Forces officer was part of a two-man team that won the Best Ranger Competition. The West Point graduate also holds a Ph.D. in international studies from Princeton.
He says there’s value in bringing the warriors and scholars to the same table to talk about the Iraq War.
“They each bring their own perspectives, right?” he said. “The soldiers were out there, fighting, they kind of get it at the tactical level, but maybe not at the theoretical level sometimes. So, you got the academic that brings this different perspective and this different knowledge base. And you put them together and you can leverage the strengths of both to really gain learning and understanding.”
Interim Columbus State President Dr. John Fuchko is in the Georgia National Guard and he says that these types of academic exercises set us apart from other nations.
And the conflict between warriors and historians is natural and necessary.
“Maybe there is a conflict, but at the bottom of it, I think is a set of core values that inform higher education and informs the military – informs our military,” Fuchko said. “And it sets us apart from almost every other higher education and military in concert across the world is this commitment to looking back critically and saying what went right, what didn’t go right.”
One of those historians agrees.
“The value is having a conversation between the two different groups,” said Dr. Kyle Longley, Director of the War Diplomacy and Society Program at Chapman University. “The thing that I think is most important is we have had a collective amnesia already about Iraq, and Afghanistan.”
He defines that this way.
“People didn’t want to have to talk about it,” he said. “Didn’t want to have to discuss it. But it’s such an important topic, especially because of the continuing effect on our veterans and soldiers of the wars themselves. So, if we are not discussing it, we are not debating it, we are missing out on a great deal.”
This symposium resumes Saturday morning at 9 and concludes at about 4 in the afternoon at the National Infantry Museum off of South Lumpkin Road. The event is open to the public at no cost.
