BYU history professor and recently retired Army Col. Mark Choate says diplomatic missions are a lot like church missions: they carry a higher, broader purpose, run on small teams and accomplish a similar overarching goal of bringing peace to God’s children.
“Change for the better doesn’t just happen by itself,” said Choate, who recently returned from a 30-month assignment as the U.S. Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché in the African nation of Chad. “Peacemaking is a big part of the BYU mission and also of military planning and diplomacy. And it's really one step at a time, one action at a time.”
Choate’s steps and actions have added up in an impressive way. For his exceptional service in building diplomacy, Choate was awarded the prestigious Legion of Merit this fall. First created by an Act of Congress in 1942 — and awarded to Dwight D. Eisenhower a year later — the Legion of Merit is awarded to members of the Armed Forces for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.”
Choate’s award was tied directly to his work opening a track for the U.S. Special Forces to help with anti-terrorism efforts in the Sahel region of Africa. When Choate first arrived in the Sahel in 2016, there had been no military-to-military relationship between the United States and Sudan since 1989.
“I was able to help establish that relationship and host the first U.S. flag officer, general officer, visit in over 30 years,” Choate said. “I am grateful to receive the Legion of Merit and thank my family also for decades of support in balancing multiple mobilizations, deployments, command responsibilities, and travel around the world from Afghanistan to Zambia.”
Choate was also awarded the prestigious Bronze Star in 2011 for his outstanding collection of regional military histories and his handbook on Afghan village stability. Choate enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 while at Yale College and switched to the Army Reserve before finishing his Ph.D. in history from Yale. He joined the history faculty at BYU just a few weeks before 9/11, and has served in several deployments, including with the U.S. Special Operations Command in Afghanistan during the collapse of the Taliban.
Choate is grateful to BYU for its support of his military assignments. After 35 years of service, he is now retired from the Army but continuing his BYU professorship where he aims to enhance his history courses with real-world experiences and emphasize the important role of peacemaking across the globe. He teaches Europe 1914 to Present, a class that includes colonial and post-colonial relations with Africa and the collapse of the French relationship in the Sahel. He also teaches a course on the history of fascism and Nazism and the pivotal role that sub-Saharan Africa played in defeating fascism during World War II, including in Ethiopia and in Chad.
In his experience, BYU students are well-suited for military and diplomacy careers because of the moral standards they have honed. Integrity, discipline, and drug and alcohol-free lifestyles are important in military services, where distractions, entrapments, and pitfalls are readily available. He said BYU students also have the ability to use their language skills and international expertise to serve a world-wide cause of peacemaking.
“Preventing wars from happening in the first place is by far the best way to save lives and all the horrible costs of armed conflict,” Choate said.
As a long-standing proponent of Pro Deo et Patria (the Army Chaplain Corps’ motto For God and Country), Choate sees his work and service — as a scholar, teacher, soldier, officer, and diplomat — grounded in personal “moral fiber.” He maintains that “God is available all the time, everywhere, at any moment.”
