A postwar call to service
After more than a decade of war, the United States faces a rising domestic challenge: reintegrating more than a million veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and another million expected to come home in the coming years. To help them build new lives, the nation must channel that generation’s enthusiasm for service, said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) on Monday. “When we send young people away, we’re responsible for them,” McChrystal told a packed audience during a discussion of veterans’ policies at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. “Not to give them something, but to give them an opportunity to continue to serve, give them a place to fit in.” The event, “Ask What You Can Do For America’s Veterans,” preceded a campus dinner for Harvard veterans and active-duty service members, a biennial tradition organized by the Center for Public...