Deployed civilian scholar honored at university

by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod
1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO

	photo by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod/1st BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. PAO Lee Bagan, a civil-service intelligence specialist deployed in Al Anbar province, Iraq, briefs a unit prior to its departure on a mission.

CAMP RAMADI, Iraq — While a 25-year-old Department of Defense civil service specialist provided intelligence on the Iraqi human landscape to Navy SEALs and paratroopers of 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (Advise and Assist Brigade) here, a major American university was hosting a dinner in his name.

The first “Lee Bagan Endowment Dinner” was held on the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, to recognize the endowment’s supporters and to attract further financial support for a scholarship fund for gifted University of Texas students struggling with learning disabilities.

In spite of a reading disability, Chicago-native Bagan was the top student in UT’s Middle Eastern studies undergraduate program in 2005, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in only three years. As part of a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies earned from UT in 2007, he learned Arabic, Persian, Tajiki and Hebrew.

“Lee Bagan is a what they mean when they say ‘gentleman and a scholar,’” said Aaron Bar-Adon, an international scholar and Bagan’s former professor. Bar-Adon fought in Israeli’s 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was instrumental in the subsequent transformation of the Hebrew language.
Amy Hendrick, who was a severely-disabled student also studying under Bar-Adon with Bagan, said that her classmate rekindled a student group that gave voice to the disabled on UT Austin’s sprawling campus.

“What he did for the disabled on campus is just amazing,” said Hendrick, currently a graduate coordinator for the Folklore and Public Cultures Department at UT. “It’s a big campus, and it’s an old campus.”

Old architecture is often unfriendly to disabled persons, she noted.

After serving as the principal Middle East and Central Asia subject-matter expert for Navy SEAL Teams 7 and 10 and for Marine Corps Regimental Combat Team 8 in western Iraq this year, Bagan began supporting the 82nd Abn. Div.’s advise-and-assist brigade.

Bagan was recently recognized by the Marines Corps for “expert consultation in support of military operations” and praised Bagan as “undaunted as a forward deployed subject matter expert.”

 “(Bagan) went out on virtually every mission with us and provided expert economic, cultural, and political analysis and advice for the Rutbah (Iraq) area,” said 1st Lt. Raphael Clarke, former team leader of Civil Affairs Team 1, Detachment West, Regimental Combat Team 8.
“He was our no-bull resident academic. We called him ‘Professor,’” said Clarke.