Shortest Way Home, by Pete Buttigieg: on Homeland Security

Pete Buttigieg: 9/11 brought post-Cold War era to new generation of war

History was back, and our generation's project had been abruptly reassigned--that yesterday we had been absorbed in Clinton-era concerns around globalization, the distribution of wealth, and the consequences of technology. Like laws of physics, these forces were animating our affairs all along.

Pete Buttigieg: Knee-jerk PATRIOT Act undercut American freedoms

The responses were largely knee-jerk; a PATRIOT Act that undercut the freedoms that define America, and several quick steps down the slippery slope to torture. So slow were we to realize how fundamentally different this was than wars we had studied in school or seen in movies that by October we were bargaining against our own values, moving steadily and surely into the jaws of a trap that Al-Qaeda had laid for us.

Pete Buttigieg: Signed up for military in 2008, during Iraq troop surge

The Iraq troop surge was winding down but not yet over. Afghanistan, mostly out of view, was simmering. Yellow ribbons were everywhere, and more than once I would knock on a door and get into a conversation with a young man who told me he would love to go to the caucus on Thursday and vote, but couldn't because he was packing up for Basic Training. [He signed up].

Pete Buttigieg: 1950s norm was college then military; he followed suit

In 1956, a majority of the graduating classes of Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton joined the military. But in the decades that followed, the once-diverse makeup of our military shifted drastically , especially after Vietnam.

As I reflected on it, I realized that my arrival at Harvard coincided with the near-disappearance of my own childhood interest in serving. At a younger age, when I had hoped to be an astronaut or a pilot, service in uniform was very much on the table. Indeed, on my mother's side, it was a family tradition. [He signed up for the military].

Pete Buttigieg: Recognize Vietnam Veterans Day, as late honor

Recognizing Vietnam Veterans Day has only begun in the last few years, but it quickly became another occasion for me to see how important a symbolic act can be. Some of the vet's eyes water. It's clear to them the honor however late in their lives, is meaningful. One of them tells me he was 18 when he went, "They called me a baby-killer when I got back," he says, staring into the distance.