War Horse Symposium Explores Military/Civilian Divide, the Importance of Journalism, and How to Hold Institutions Accountable

Jon Stewart wasn’t going anywhere. The comedian and activist’s hourlong, off-the-record session with University of Chicago students at the April 6 War Horse Symposium hosted by the Harris School of Public Policy should have ended at 5 p.m. But 5 came and went, and despite a minder tapping his watch and mouthing “time!” Stewart didn’t budge. 

He kept taking questions from the 30 or so students squeezed into Room 801 at the Logan Center, using his answers to exhort them to speak truth to power and to open their minds to new ways of seeing the world, the government, and, in particular, U.S. military and veterans’ issues.

Finally heading out, Stewart first stopped for group photos before dashing to the evening keynote. There, he and Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks discussed  “The Human Impact of Military Service,” the theme of the trailblazing symposium hosted by the Harris School and The War Horse News, a nonprofit organization reporting on military service. Along with Stewart and Hicks, the event convened scholars, journalists, government officials, veterans, active-duty service members, students, and the curious for a full day of exploring the intersection of solutions journalism and public policy and the military/civilian divide. 

“Incredible,” Molly Smith, MPP Class of 2023, said after the session with Stewart, one of two invitation-only programs for Harris students.

“I really found it refreshing that he came in and wasn't all just inspirational talk,” added Smith, who said she does not have personal connections to the military but found the symposium “so meaningful.”

“He told us, ‘This is what it's like, this is how it works, this is what I've learned, and, you know, good luck,’ ” she said.

Symposium headliner Stewart, host of The Problem With Jon Stewart on AppleTV+, is a champion of veterans causes and was instrumental in helping to pass the PACT Act, which provides additional Veterans Affairs (VA) health care and benefits to veterans exposed to toxic substances, including from burn pits.

“It's rare when you finally meet your heroes and they turn out to be the guy you think they are,” Nick Burdi, MPP Class of 2023, who is in the Army National Guard, said of Stewart.

“Jon Stewart’s actually advocating for veterans,” added Burdi, who was in ground combat operations in Afghanistan in 2019 and 2020. “A lot of people claim they're advocating for veterans but aren't.” 

Other students described additional moments of  impact during the War Horse event, which was rooted in a Harris School white paper on military “news deserts” and how they threaten national security. The paper was  written by David Chrisinger, executive director of the Harris Writing Workshop, Ellie Vorhaben, MPP’22, and Graham Harwood, MPP Class of 2023.

For Connor Christensen, a Navy veteran now in the Harris MPP-MA in Middle Eastern Studies program, one surprise was “how intense things got onstage” during the Stewart and Hicks keynote. 

“What was even more surprising,” he said, “was the eloquence and efficiency with which Jon Stewart was able to joke, call out, low-key attack, and then cool down the conversation. He tolerated exactly zero nonsensical bureaucratic responses. I also praise the deputy secretary’s ability to keep her composure and respond.”

“Jon Stewart was fantastic,” said Nancy R. Smith, MPP Class of 2023, an active-duty Navy lieutenant assigned to graduate school who attended his off-the-record session and the keynote. "It's clear that he's a passionate and informed advocate for veterans issues, which means a lot to the military-affiliated students at Harris." 

The former president of the Military Affiliated Students of Harris (MASH), Smith said she also found VA Secretary Denis McDonough’s interview with War Horse News Managing Editor Kelly Kennedy “important and promising.” McDonough and Kennedy discussed government efforts to utilize information about existing Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry applicants to help identify others who should be on the registry, through such steps as mapping service members by unit, Smith said.  

“That's a use of data that, if done well, will have a huge, positive impact,” she added.

Others spoke of eye-opening moments at panels including a lunchtime gathering with McDonough. At this second of the two student-centered events, McDonough was joined by Major Gen. John Borling, who was a North Vietnam prisoner of war for more than six years, and Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Jim McCloughan, a combat medic drafted into the Army in 1968 and credited with saving the lives of 10 fellow soldiers in Vietnam. Harris School senior lecturer John Burrows moderated the sweeping discussion during which many in the audience were moved to tears by the wartime stories from Borling and McCloughan. 

Panelists also touched on how the University of Chicago and other schools can attract more veterans and active-duty service members.

Gaps in VA care and how they may be keeping people from opting for military service was another topic the panelists tackled.

“I hate to use an old cliche, but nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care,” said McCloughan. “As soon as individuals in civilian life see that if something goes wrong when they're serving their country that they'll be taken care of, then they'll be more likely to raise their hand.”

Amar Shah, MPP Class of 2023, who attended the panel discussion and counts veterans and active-duty service members among his friends, said afterward that mental-health care is essential for the VA to deliver as well. 

“Some of my friends in the military have seen and experienced traumatic events that have fundamentally changed who they are,” said Shah. “And I do not necessarily think that there is the mental-health support to help them cope and reassimilate with civilian life.”

Shah added that overall, he hoped the symposium “opened some minds, especially for the people who went just for Jon Stewart.”

Navy officer Smith said she too hoped that “people came away with a more critical and diverse perspective on military service.”

“We're at such a transitional time,” she said. “The country was at war for 20 years and while we’re no longer at war, we're in great power competition. What we do next will have a lasting impact for everyone, not just service members.” 

The day after the event, Christensen said he’d already “heard from a couple of my non-military friends that the symposium did indeed open their minds up a bit to the military/veteran dynamic” as well as to Department of Defense and VA policies. 

“These aren't the usual topics that are discussed at Harris, and I think it was an overall excellent bit of nuance that non-military folks were able to take in,” added Christensen, noting that while he often puts his “veteran identity away …  it was refreshing to put that cap on among my non-military peers” at the symposium. 

Reflecting on the day, Army veteran Eric Geber, MPP Class of 2023, said “the symposium did a great job of highlighting the breadth of military service and experiences, and the role that journalism should play in bringing that to a wider audience.”

“What lies behind the well-intentioned ‘Thank you for your service’ is often a hesitation or apprehension in trying to understand what military service is like,” he added. “This is what creates the ‘civilian/military divide,’ and the War Horse did a good job of showing how this gap could be narrowed.”