Marine to deliver first-hand account
A former soldier, JMU alum to discuss war in Iraq
By Victoria Shelor, staff writer
Posted on October 9, 2006

Tonight, author and JMU alumnus Mike Tucker will present “The War is in the Mosques: A Strategy for Victory in Iraq and The Global War on Terror.” 

Tucker is a former U.S. Marine with a special operations background.  As a Marine, Tucker saw the war first hand and saw combat at Fallujah and Mosul — some of the most brutal areas in Iraq. 

“He has been in the center of action and has been fired at,” said political science professor Anthony Eksterowicz, who nominated Tucker to be a visiting scholar.

“Mike always went where the action went,” Eksterowicz said.

Tucker graduated from JMU in 1982 with a bachelor’s in history and received his master’s degree in English in 1999.
“[Tucker] is someone we can highlight from the JMU community,” Eksterowicz said. 

Tucker will discuss how the mosques are related to the war and a possible strategy for success in Iraq and the War on Terror, Eksterowicz said.

Eksterowicz expects there will be a lot of questions for Tucker from students about Iraq at the event tonight. 
“We don’t have a lot of opportunities to really know what goes on there [in Iraq],” he said. “Reporters are often shielded in the green zone, but Mike’s not a reporter, he’s a Marine.”

Tucker’s first book, “The Long Patrol: With the Karen Guerrillas in Burma,” documents his experiences camping out with Karen guerrilla fighters behind Burmese Army lines in order to investigate army war crimes. 

His second book, “Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds after Saddam, An Oral History,” contains the discussions Tucker had with Kurdish leaders. Tucker’s most recent book is entitled “Among Warriors in Iraq: True Grit, Special Ops, and Lock-and-Load Raiding in Mosul and Fallujah.”

Each semester, a committee of 10 faculty members and one student member vote on candidates nominated for the Visiting Scholars Program at JMU, said David Jeffrey, dean of the College of Arts and Letters and head of the Visiting Scholars Program.

“We ask the nominators to talk about why the candidate would be appealing to students and why students would be interested in hearing from them,” Jeffrey said.

Senior Bryan Egan, who has read some of Tucker’s work, said he thinks of “countless mistakes” when he thinks of the War on Terror.
“I think we’ve gone about it the wrong way,” Egan said. “We can’t leave [Iraq] now because it will make insurgents more powerful.”

Likewise, sophomore Irina Rasner said she thinks of death and fear when she hears the phrase “War on Terror.”

“Violence isn’t always the answer,” Rasner said. “I’m personally against the war in Iraq.  I think it hasn’t helped and if anything, things have gotten worse.”

The speech will be held in the War Memorial Auditorium in Memorial Hall at 6:30 p.m. with free admission as part of JMU’s Visiting Scholars Progam.