Graduate Student Veterans Panel
"War in the 21st Century: The Graduate Experience"
Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007
Noon
Mershon Center for International Security Studies
1501 Neil Ave.
This lecture is open to the public.
Lunch will be served to invited students and faculty who RSVP to Ann Powers no later than Friday, Jan. 26, 2007.
John Guilmartin, Professor of Military History at The Ohio State University and retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Air Force, will lead a panel of three graduate students who are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The veterans will talk about their experiences, with plenty of time for question and answer.
Among the graduate student veterans speaking are:
Valerie Hudson enlisted in the Army in 1988 after graduating from Washington State University with a B.S. in Geology and a B.A. in History. In the Army, Hudson was trained in the Korean language and stationed in Korea in 1990 and 1991. Hudson completed four years on active duty and then transferred to the Army Reserve.
Hudson received a Master's Degree in History from Arizona State University in 1998 with a thesis on the Army of the Potomac in 1863. She then came to The Ohio State University to pursue a Ph.D. in Military History. By then a Staff Sergeant in the Army Reserve, Hudson was called up in 2004 for an 18-month mobilization which included three months in Iraq in 2005. After demobilizing, Hudson returned to Ohio State, and she remains in the Reserves with the rank of Sergeant First Class.
Captain Pete Rayls is a 1999 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy where he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in Armor Branch. After service as a tank platoon leader he transferred to Adjutant General Branch and deployed to Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom II with the 1st Infantry Division from February 2003 to February 2004.
Rayls is a graduate of the Armor Officer's Basic Course, Adjutant General Captain's Career Course, Combined Arms and Services Staff School, and Air Assault School. He is currently working on his Master's Degree in Modern American History at The Ohio State University, with a thesis that analyzes the U.S. Senate during the Korean War.
Major Thomas Spahr received a B.A. in History from the University of Delaware and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, Military Intelligence, US Army in 1997. Spahr's assignments include duty as an intelligence officer with the 82 nd Airborne Division and 75 th Ranger Regiment. He deployed with the 75th Ranger Regiment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in December 2001 and with 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group in support of the Counter Narco-terrorist mission to Colombia in 2003.
Spahr is currently working on his Master's Degree in Military History at The Ohio State University. His thesis focuses on the counterinsurgency campaign during the Mexican War, 1846-1848. In June of 2007 he will move to West Point, N.Y., where he will instruct Military History at the U.S. Military Academy.
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