You’ve probably seen Paul Rieckhoff’s shaved dome on the cable nets at one time or another. He’s an articulate and engaging spokesman for U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts in his role as founder and executive director of IAVA.
I wanted to talk to Paul, himself an Iraq War veteran, about a spate of recent news stories on the struggles veterans are facing, from a spike in suicides among soldiers to new evidence on how widespread traumatic brain injuries are among this generation of veterans. And we’ll bring you that part of our interview later in the week.
But we ended up also talking at some length about President Obama’s deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan even before he’s articulated our strategic objectives there, let alone mapped out a strategy. Paul has some smart things to say about that, too:
