USD Magazine Summer 2010

“The focus is usually on terrorists burning down schools, not us helping to rebuild them. Or the devastation of a typhoon, not the disaster relief that follows. Recognition aside, knowing that we’re doing that is important to me. It happens all the time, all over the world, and I’m very proud to be a part of that.” Bollinger was deployed in March 2009 to the southern Philippines for mostly humanitarian operations, including rebuilding schools destroyed by extremists, teaching a photojournalism class for local students and aiding rescue operations and relief efforts after a typhoon devastated the country. “That’s probably the single most important thing I’ve done in my life,” Bollinger says. “One of the biggest things about military service for me is the feeling that I’m doing something important and having a direct impact on the world.” oth sides of the equation aim to have an impact, albeit with different means to the same end, and that mutual desire has played out in USD classrooms. “Our students are able to listen to a different point of view,” Capt. Woolley says. “Maybe they don’t always agree with it, but they can respect it and they can learn why that argument is being made. By doing that, I think there’s a better understanding on both parts.” B

fessor and Marine Corps officer instructor. “From our perspective, those pieces really build a savvy into our officer corps that we’re going to need to deal with a complex environ- ment moving forward.”

That aim is perhaps best exempli- fied by the “3D” approach, in which defense, development and diploma- cy are all seen as integral compo- nents to achieving and maintaining stability in volatile regions of the world. It’s an area that IPJ Deputy Director Dee Aker has used to help design and implement peace-build- ing programs around the world.

Major Jason Reudi

“There is no post-conflict situation that is going to stay post-conflict without answering the security question,” Aker says. “The reality on the ground is that when it comes to conflict resolution and peace- building, there needs to be participation not only between political leadership and civil society, but from the security side as well.” In 2009, Aker traveled to Nepal as part of a team that facilitated workshops on community policing and moderated negotiations on how to integrate former Maoist rebels into the Nepali military. The task presented an opportunity to put into action the kind of cooper- ation that has been incubated at USD. “We ultimately have different jobs on one level — but not on another level,” Aker says. “We try to focus on where we have some commonality and the role the military can play in a positive sense.” Aker enlisted the help of Reudi, whose experience as a military police officer with a background in conflict resolution, military ethics and nonviolent policing proved to be, Aker says, “a perfect fit.” Reudi also called upon his experience building partnerships with international security forces in places like Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and East Timor. “The same thing happens here on this campus,” Reudi says. “We have this great environment where we can build relationships and then project them out to do good things.” Spurred both by war and catastrophes like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami and the earthquake in Haiti, the

Woolley has put the dynamic to work himself. He was recently asked to be a guest speaker for a theology class taught by religion professor Emily Reimer-Barry discussing how someone can be Catholic and in the military. “Both require you to follow your con- science first and foremost,” Woolley says. “But the way I handle that specific question is with ‘just war’ theory, which is itself a Catholic tradition. You can

Ensign Michael Sass ’10

have peace often without justice. That’s not peace and justice.” It’s that aim that ultimately bridges the divide at USD. In many university environments, the mere presence of an ROTC unit is enough to spark controversy and protest. But according to Michael Sass ’10, USD’s culture of acceptance allows the paradigm to flourish. “In my entire time here, I’ve never felt strange in uniform,” says Sass, the commanding officer of the NRTOC student battalion. “I’ve never felt like I wasn’t accepted by the campus community. I’ve never felt like I can’t speak my mind, even when I’m in uniform.” After his commissioning, Sass will be assigned to Naval Reactors, the Washington, D.C., headquarters that oversees the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. His NROTC classmates will enter basic school to complete their Marine Corps training and flight school to become Navy pilots, while others will join the crew of submarines and surface ships. They will all be part of a new generation in a new military that aims to put into action the same concepts that are being practiced and preached at USD. “It’s really a symbiotic relationship,” Bollinger says. “There would be imbalance without one or the other. I think it’s a blessing that we have both of those aspects at the university.”

military has increasingly taken on a substantial humanitarian role that includes helping with rescue opera- tions, disaster relief and critical infrastructure projects. “Call it nation-building, call it what you will, but at the core it really is wor- rying about the humanitarian con- cerns on the ground,” Headley says. “And one thing that the military has Lt. — and nobody in the NGO commu- nity would deny it — is capacity.”

Lt. Lara Bollinger ’02

As a Naval public affairs officer, Lt. Lara Bollinger ’02 helps high- light that capacity — and capability — to show that “we’re not just one big war machine.” It’s not necessarily a message that resonates with everyone. “Feel-good stories don’t always make the news,” Bollinger says.

SUMMER 2010 31