For A Navy SEAL, Balance Between 'Heart' And 'Fist'

For A Navy SEAL, Balance Between 'Heart' And 'Fist'
by NPR STAFF

June 11, 2011
Eric Greitens was a gifted young college student when a question from a Bosnian woman changed his life. It was the summer of 1994, and he had gone to the Balkans to work in refugee camps. He was on a train when he met her, and she asked him, "Why isn't America doing anything to stop the ethnic cleansings, rapes and murders?" Greitens thought he was.

"I felt like I was really making a difference," Greitens tells NPR's Scott Simon, "but when I got to Bosnia, it was clear that her question was a question that was on everybody's mind. I remember there was a guy in one of the camps who told me, 'Don't misunderstand me. We appreciate the shelter that's here for my family and I appreciate that there's food available and there's a kindergarten that's here, but if people really cared about us, they would be willing to protect us.' And I realized later that what he said was true. Whenever we love or care for anything in our lives we're willing to respond with care and with compassion, but if something that we love or someone we love is threatened, we're also willing to respond with courage."

Since that encounter, Greitens has gone on to do humanitarian work in Rwanda and Gaza, among other locations, and earned a doctorate as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. After his studies, Greitens became a U.S. Navy SEAL, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and founded a group called The Mission Continues, which works with wounded or disabled war veterans to contribute to their communities at home. In a new book, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, Greitens makes the case that humanitarianism and military missions need each other.
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Balance Between Heart And Fist