After 25 years as an elite Army soldier and a high-ranking White House official responsible for setting Afghanistan policies, retired Colonel Fernando Lujan is gearing up for his next major assignment, a year teaching politics at Howard University as a Chamberlain fellow and visiting professor.

Before finding himself at Wesleyan, Col. Robert Cassidy spent over 30 years in the military, serving in combat and contingencies in Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He held various positions including special assistant to senior commanders in Afghanistan, director of assessments for a special operations task force, battalion commander in Kuwait, and squadron executive officer in the 4th Infantry Division. In 2016, Cassidy became the first Retired Military Officer Teaching Fellow at Wesleyan. The Argus sat down with Cassidy to talk about his role on campus and his journey from the Middle East to Middletown.