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Securing a Nation

By Drew Menard, June 8, 2018

Counterterrorism expert says homeland security training is more crucial than ever before

On Sept. 12, 2001, with all commercial air traffic grounded the day after the worst terrorist attack against the United States, Dr. Stephen Parke was in the air.
A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Parke was a member of a joint task force prepared to respond to incidents of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) anywhere in the world. He flew in a Lockheed C-130 military transport to upstate New York before receiving a police escort into New York City.

“The paradigm shifts were huge,” Parke said. “We had an enemy who came inside the United States and trained, learned how to fly aircraft — at schools inside the United States — and then commandeered aircraft inside the United States in order to attack the United States.”

Parke is a modern-day watchman. Before the literal and figurative earth-shaking event in 2001, he had dedicated much of his military career to national security. Now retired from the U.S. Army, Parke is an associate dean of the Liberty University Helms School of Government.

His office is filled with hardware acknowledging his accomplishments: challenge coins from the CIA, the FBI, and a four-star general, as well as the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award, a 15-pound bronze bust that he received from the iconic WWII hero’s wife in the 1980s.

Parke said that for one year after 9/11, he served as sort of a “plank-holder,” helping to create the new organization NORTHCOM (U.S. Northern Command), a Department of Defense agency charged with the military side of securing the homeland. Following that post, he was the Joint Task Force Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo Bay, where he supervised Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps attorneys, served as the principal legal advisor to the commander on detention and intelligence gathering operations, and arranged meetings between detainees and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He was also a contributing author for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s “Domestic WMD Incident Management: Legal Deskbook,” the first research tool specifically for lawyers responding to WMD accidents or incidents of terrorism.

Upon his retirement in 2006, Parke came to Liberty to help develop undergraduate homeland security and intelligence courses under the Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. He also teaches a course in the new Master of Science in Criminal Justice — Homeland Security specialization, an online degree program launched last fall.

As a specialist in counterterrorism, Parke helps to ensure that Liberty’s programs stay current and relevant in a post-9/11 America that is focused on securing the homeland from not only external threats but also new threats arising from within its own borders.

“We have seen the first few examples of cyber warfare with kinetic actions,” Parke said, noting a 2015 incident that knocked out power grids in Ukraine. “The Department of Homeland Security has some huge missions currently, and in the future, to ensure our domestic tranquility and our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

Parke said it has been fulfilling to share his expertise in counterterrorism, law, and the judicial process with his students, from undergraduates to midlevel agency workers looking to rise in the ranks with a master’s degree.

Under his watch, Parke has trained students who have gone on to work “at the tip of the spear” with several three-letter agencies.

He thanks God for “the privilege” of his “new mission” to fortify the next generation of watchmen.

“To have an impact on students at the foundation of a profession, or at the midlevel of a profession, pays dividends for literally the next 20 or 30 years,” Parke said. “In this arena of homeland security, there is such a need for future leaders to have a biblical foundation as they guide people in whatever agency they are in. I will give an accounting to my Maker for how I prepare them to go out into the world, to be salt and light and to make a difference in a world that is crying out for them.”


WORLD-CLASS TRAINING

The Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice: Homeland Security prepares students for the front lines of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Career options include: emergency management specialist, homeland security analyst, industrial security specialist, security specialist, and transportation security officer.
The Master of Science in Criminal Justice: Homeland Security trains criminal justice professionals for leadership roles in the administration and management of homeland security organizations and the execution of homeland security responsibilities at all levels of government.

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