DURHAM, N.C. — Veterans Day is a time when we remember the sacrifices men and women in the armed forces have made for this country.
What You Need To Know
Paul Dillon is a 76-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War
He was awarded two Bronze Stars for meritorious duty in combat during his one-year tour of duty
Dillon now teaches a course with and for veterans at the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
One veteran wants the world to see the strengths they bring to the workforce as well.
Paul Dillon is a veteran of the Vietnam War who is now teaching a class at Duke University called "PubPol 830.01. Public Policy and Veterans: A Social Policy Seminar—The Case of Returning Military Veterans."
“My objective through this course is to give people a sense of all the skills and all the aspects veterans bring to society,” Dillon said.
The students in Dillon’s course are men and women who served. He works with them to craft public policies to help them in the real world. Coming home from war doesn’t automatically make you damaged goods, he said.
“Yes, there are some that come home who are terribly damaged by traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, but it isn’t everybody,” Dillon said.
He says service members who are becoming civilians again will be as courageous on the job as they proved themselves to be on the battlefield.
The former Army 1st lieutenant said, “They’re great at not only being team members, but leading teams. Veterans are absolutely focused on a mission, because that’s accomplishing the mission. That's what military service teaches you. To accomplish the mission. They’re great at not only being team members, but leading teams.”
Dillon talks the talk and walks the walk. The Army has been teaching servant leadership for over 246 years. That’s what Dillon hopes to pass on to his students at Duke.
“Taking care of other people should be a lifelong mission. I think my military service and what I saw in Vietnam reinforced that,” Dillon said. “We do more by 9 a.m. than most people do all day. Let me tell you that’s the absolute truth.”
Dillon said the best policies are written and made by people who need them.
He served a one-year tour in Vietnam beginning in 1970. When he left in 1971, he carried home two bronze star medals.
"I saw that life is very short, and that it's very tenuous. A life well-lived here in my opinion is a life of service to others,” he said.
During a ceremony on Thursday at Duke University’s campus he wore his valor on his cap. Now the integrity he displayed in the heat of battle is being shared. He said people often see service members as broken in need of repair.
“What most people don’t understand is that military service teaches to pivot from plans that aren’t working to plans that do,” Dillon said.
It’s a course for veterans and by veterans collaborating to create future policies best for them. Beyond addressing mental health, homelessness, substance abuse and more, these former service members can become excellent hires for employers.
One student he met at the Sanford School of Public Policy is Agustin Gonzalez. Gonzalez served in the Army and was deployed to Afghanistan. Gonzalez didn't die fighting for his country but in a car accident in 2019 after he returned home.
The lone survivor of the car wreck is Gonzalez’s 11-year-old son, Nick. After the ceremony for Gonzalez, Dillon told Nick his father was someone to look up to.
“I turned to him and said, ‘You have a great father to live up to.’ I hope that he does. Aguie was a great guy. He was the epitome of what an Army officer should be, what a human being should be,” Dillon said.
He was the kind of man Dillon sees in his students.
Dillon served a total of eight years, with most of them spent in the U.S. Army Reserve.