VCU Student Veterans Group Hosts Discussion on Defense Spending

The Virginia Alpha Chapter of Omega Delta Sigma, a student veterans group at VCU, will host a discussion on defense spending.

“The Future of America’s Defense Spending” takes place on Saturday, April 20, from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. in Harris Hall, room 101. The event is free and open to the public.

Decorated former CIA officer and Air Force veteran Gary Berntsen will lead the discussion, which will focus on issues such as reforming defense spending responsibly and when defense budget cuts are too great to accept.  

Berntsen, who served 24 years in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, led several major CIA counterterrorism deployments including the U.S. response to the East Africa Embassy bombings and the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Berntsen received the agency’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 2000 and Intelligence Star in 2004.

Berntsen is an author and ran for U.S. Senate in New York in 2010, losing in the Republican primary.

Berntsen’s visit to VCU is part of a college tour sponsored by “Concerned Veterans for America,” a nonprofit group that focuses on economic policy and veterans causes.

 

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