Raymond to examine life stories of decorated combat veterans

Dr. Ray Raymond, a frequent lecturer at Salve Regina, will visit the University again next week to examine the life stories of five young U.S. Army officers. “Elite Souls: The Anatomy of Modern Military Courage” will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12 in the Ochre Court state dining room.

The Army officers Raymond will discuss personify the kind of moral as well as physical courage described by Ardant du Picq, the great 19th century French military thinker. They are all highly decorated combat veterans and recipients of West Point’s Ninninger Medal, the academy’s equivalent of the Medal of Honor.

An associate professor of government and history at SUNY Ulster, Raymond is also the director of the Institute for Constitutional Studies. He was the 2009 Thomas Hawkins Johnson Visiting Professor at the U.S. Military Academy and is a fellow of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City and the Royal Society of Arts in London. Raymond is a 20-year veteran of the U.K. diplomatic corps, a former senior advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair and a member of the Order of the British Empire.