Samuel Gras

Samuel Gras is back.
He started studying international security and history at IU in 1997, but joined the Army after seeing Sept. 11.
“I didn’t want to watch the war from my couch. I wanted to see it for myself and be a part of it.”
However, Gras needed to do more than just fight for freedom. He wanted to bring those experiences back to Bloomington.
“If you’re in a social science class and you’re trying to state your opinion, that’s great, but it’s still an opinion. So for someone that’s just read the book versus someone that’s actually done it, I thought that it would give me a little advantage.”
Now that he is back in class, Gras said he’s kind of surprised that most students don’t have more questions or aren’t more curious.
“It seems like they want out of sight, out of mind about it all, which is OK. It’s a long war. You can’t just think about it every day.”