MASTERING PEACE

“You got a master’s degree in what?” This time I slow it down: “P-E-A-C-E-K-E-E-P-I-N-G.” It’s loud and heavy on the syllables. A perplexed look usually follows my second attempt, leaving me no choice but to fall back on my one-liners:

“It’s an education on how to provide humanitarian relief in hostile or challenging environments.”

Or: “If Chuck Norris ever wanted to trade in his jaw-dropping roundhouse kicks for a more peaceful approach, this is the program he would attend.”

But if they still aren’t satisfied, then I give them the unabridged version.

My motivation for seeking such an unconventional degree was the byproduct of several well-intended but ultimately misguided career paths. As the 9-to-5 failures mounted, I was forced to re-evaluate the true north of my internal compass.

I took into consideration my extensive travels abroad, a growing interest in foreign affairs and the feeling that external measurements of success would never extract the level of fulfillment I was searching for in life – a search that found me aboard a transatlantic flight bound for Italy.

The University of Turin’s Master’s in Peacekeeping Management program was about to have its first representative from the Pacific Northwest.

Classes began in the middle of January. A cold air filled my lungs as I hurried along narrow cobblestone streets nervously pondering what my first day of school would be like. What if the other students picked on me, called me names like Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney?

Entering the classroom, I quickly reverted back to my college days and took refuge in the back row, where I could assess the situation. For a boy who grew up on a 180-acre farm north of Spokane it looked like a United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Each member of the class stated their name and nationality. The pop-quiz in geography began with Valentino from Nigeria, then Ashok from India, Carlos from Mexico, Ansam from Iraq, Rita from Portugal.

The students continued as I scrambled to memorize the nationalities and correct pronunciation of each name. Drowning in sensory overload I almost missed my turn: “Brad from the United States.”

I was the only American. Just being associated with U.S. foreign policy made me feel on edge. Like damaged goods. Like nervously checking that box on a job application that asks if you’ve ever been convicted of a felony. Like farting loud enough for the bride’s parents to hear.

It might not have been the end of the world, but it certainly felt awkward. I tried to carry my “I am not a crook” look all through class, but jowls or no jowls, I wasn’t fooling anyone.

The program covered a variety of topics associated with humanitarian assistance. In our classes we studied everything from emergency management to rebuilding governmental institutions. One week we were grilled on how we would oversee elections in a fledgling democracy, while in the next we were learning how to design and run refugee camps.

Subjects were taught by international professors and humanitarian workers who utilized their diverse educational backgrounds and field experience to articulate the complexities of peacekeeping operations not found in textbooks.

In addition to the course curriculum, all 27 wannabe peacekeepers had two scheduled opportunities to lace up our boots and venture outside the confines of the classroom, transforming theory into practice.

Our first trip was to a NATO military base north of Venice. We attended lectures conducted by CIMIC (Civil-Military Co-operation) officers in order to understand the joint coordination that takes place between civilian organizations and the military during missions.

One component was a simulated negotiation between the students and military personnel posing as foreign dignitaries. Divided into working groups, we outlined our negotiation strategy to an assigned translator.

The experience highlighted unexpected obstacles when working with a translator. Each group soon learned the inherent difficulties of adding another language into the process.

A concern grew among my group as to whether a hidden agenda was being pushed by our translator. It seemed our statements were not always “accidentally” lost in translation.

Our second trip was a five-day training exercise led by an Italian Military Brigade and the Red Cross. Camped out in military-issued tents among wooded farmlands west of Turin, we learned a host of new skills.

The most anticipated was responding to critical situations, including a hostage-taking simulation. Nothing says peacekeeping like getting jerked from a Humvee by “terrorists” (Italian soldiers dressed as militant rebels) and having a burlap sack put over your head.

We also tromped around the woods with radios, practicing communication procedures. We feasted on military rations, learned how to board helicopters promptly and properly, and refined our primitive navigational skills by locating checkpoints with the use of maps.

And although I was a little confused about the likelihood of delivering humanitarian aid under the cover of darkness, I traded in my eyeglasses for night vision goggles. Somehow the military deemed this as necessary training; I deemed it as nothing more than a Desert Storm flashback, seeing the night’s landscape light up the same way it does on TV.

Yet even these adrenaline-packed moments were a distant second to the true reward of this program: the students.

Belonging to such diverse parts of the world, many of them brought to life the intangible reasons why I sought this unique education. Several came from countries ravaged by war and natural disasters and they shared their firsthand experiences with the rest of the class.

I was transfixed when the Iraqi students spoke about the violence taking place in their country. Their stories paralleled the news reports, but this time there was no need for a satellite feed. The glare from the television set was absent, as were the flak-jacketed reporters with their questionable assessments of the situation on the ground.

These voices from the conflict were not far away in some distant land; they were in front of me. The turmoil in Iraq had driven these students from their homeland in search of an unusual set of skills.

They attended school knowing what is being discussed in class today most likely happened in their country yesterday. The program’s title is peacekeeping, but the Iraqis knew they would be returning to their homes as peacemakers.

In times like these, the commitment to building and keeping peace evokes conflicting emotions and reactions. Many stem not from an unwavering devotion to peace but a complete disdain for war.

One would be hard-pressed to sell an opposing pro-war bumper sticker that reads, “I’m already against the next peace agreement!” But for many people, the pursuit of peace on an international level is simply off their radar.

When people listen as I describe my master’s program, they invariably throw in a predictable comment or jest, suggesting I should apply my new skills to help resolve their office politics or to intervene as a peacekeeper for their marriage.

I smile in an attempt to disguise how often I hear that joke, agreeing that trying to implement nonviolent ideologies in everyday life is important.

Once all variations of the joke have been played out, I continue my explanation of what I intend to do with this new degree. I suggest it’s similar to their proposal – if they just replace “office politics” with human rights, or “marriage” with ethnic fighting.

It would be naive to think my studies in peacekeeping will lead us to the world that John Lennon imagined. My goal is to transform what I’ve learned into a contribution of more realistic proportions: to chase down a job in the field, to embrace the challenges of humanitarian work with unwarranted optimism – and, maybe in the process, provide hope and a reason to smile for someone facing tremendous adversity.