The Challenge of Teaching War to Today's Students

This is the first installment in our series of essays written by veterans. We asked service members to share how their time in uniform shaped their perspectives on American life.

The first time that I taught the Middle East to my high-school students, I expected questions on terrorism and the war in Iraq. My students knew that I was a Marine and a veteran of the war, and even though the history class concentrated on the advent of Islam and its expansion from the Arabian peninsula into Africa, Europe, and Asia, I prepared to use that context to form a discussion around the modern-day conflict. Considering today’s political landscape—and the fact that ISIS was at this point a focal point in media discussions and presidential debates—I anticipated my students would be particularly curious about the relevance of the region’s