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Yale University and the Loneliness of the Military Professional

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Yale University and the Loneliness of the Military Professional
Then-Captain Charles Faint (right) and Master Sergeant Will Rinehart, Iraq 2004. Courtesy of Charles Faint
Battlefields Staff
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Commentary
Many years ago, I began working on a project that eventually became this article. It started when a friend of mine, a fellow veteran, sent me Victor Hanson’s 2007 piece “Why Study War.”  One of the many things that stood out to me about that article was a line from Margaret Atwood’s poem “The Loneliness of the Military Historian”:
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Charles Faint served 27 years as an officer in the U.S. Army. During his time in uniform he served seven combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq while assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Joint Special Operations Command. He holds an MA in International Affairs from Yale University and in retirement serves as the Chair for the Study of Special Operations in the Modern War Institute at West Point. This article represents his personal reflections on the war in Afghanistan and is not an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States Army.
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