Dr. Chris Howard '91
When he was an Air Force reservist in 2003, Dr. Chris Howard ’91 was called up to be deployed in the Middle East as an intelligence officer. He told his sons, who were 5 and 10 years old at the time, “I’m going to tell the good guys and gals where the bad people are, so we can find them and make sure they know that America doesn’t tolerate bad people doing bad things to our nation.”
Dr. Howard and his team supplied the Combined Joint Task Force 180 and Task Force 1.1 (Joint Special Operations Command) with human intelligence, efforts that “led me to a blessing of being awarded a Bronze Star,” he says. His Bronze Star is displayed at his parents’ home in Plano, Texas, next to his father’s Bronze Star, which he received in 1969 after serving in Vietnam. “That’s one of the most special moments of my life, that sort of circle of service,” Dr. Howard says.