When Missouri native Eric Greitens came to Duke as an A. B. Duke Scholar and began designing his own major in ethics, he didn’t anticipate how quickly and profoundly that interest would be expanded to an international sphere. But the summer after his freshman year, when he traveled to China to study and teach, Eric was arrested for talking about human rights in his English class. Then during his sophomore year, Eric studied with two professors who worked with refugee children, and he decided to join them first for a summer in Croatia and then the following summer in Rwanda and Zaire.
Eric was named a Truman Scholar and a Rhodes Scholar, and as a graduate student at Oxford University, he built on his experiences at Duke. While at Oxford, Eric worked as a humanitarian volunteer and documentary photographer in Bolivia, Israel, India, Mexico, Cambodia, and Albania. His master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation focused on the challenges that international humanitarian organizations face dealing with children in war zones.
“Working with refugee children in situations of ethnic cleansing and genocide, I came to believe that the international community should respond, and respond with force when necessary,” Eric said, “and if I was going to be an advocate for the use of force, then I needed to serve myself.” So in 2001, a month after he completed his PhD, Eric joined the U.S. Navy SEALs. He served on active duty for four and a half years, traveling to Afghanistan and leading counter-terror operations in Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa. “There’s a very direct, very meaningful kind of leadership experience that comes from leading a small group in the military.”
After completing active duty, Eric was named one of twelve White House Fellows for 2005-06. His term started just a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and Eric was assigned to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There he created and was able to implement the Universities Rebuilding America Program, a federal grant program that enabled colleges and universities to better contribute to the rebuilding efforts on the Gulf Coast.
After his White House Fellowship, Eric deployed to Iraq for six-months as a SEAL reserve officer. For his achievements in Iraq, he was recently awarded the Bronze Star.
Boxing Humanitarian
In addition to his humanitarian work at Duke, Eric Greitens was also an amateur boxer. He competed in Golden Gloves and Collegiate Boxing Association events while at Duke, and at Oxford was the university’s star boxer. In 1998, he earned the gold medal at the British Universities Sporting Association National Championships before retiring from competitive boxing. Eric is currently working on a novel about three men in Durham, North Carolina whose lives are changed by boxing.