For understandable reasons, Lindsay Gabow ’27 won’t share many details about her seven years serving as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, which included six months in Qatar working in counterterrorism.
But she will tell you what inspired her to join the military and then to enroll in law school, where she’s planning a career protecting core American values, including free speech. She cites as motivation the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Though she was just 7 years old, Gabow was irrevocably changed by that day.
“My town, like many surrounding New York City, was quite affected. I had peers who lost fathers that day,” said Gabow, who grew up in Pelham, N.Y. “I was too young to really understand what happened or to understand the concept of terrorism but old enough to have this sense there was something evil in the world and that it could harm my fellow citizens, maybe even my loved ones directly.”
She felt drawn to serving her country, and though she’d had little exposure to the military, she applied to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for her undergraduate studies and was admitted. “I realized I was very privileged to grow up in the household I did, to always feel safe and loved, and I felt I had an obligation to pay that forward,” she explained. “I have never wavered from my patriotism and never wavered from the belief [our country was] trying to do good.”
At West Point she was a standout scholar and athlete. She ranked among the top 6 percent of cadets in her class and won several academic awards. A gifted runner, she was captain of West Point’s NCAA Division 1 Cross Country and Track and Field team, where her running times in the 3,000-, 5,000-, and 10,000-meter events were among the top 10 in school history. In 2018, competing with runners from all branches of the military, Gabow won the Armed Forces Marathon Championship, and she achieved two top-10 ten in the Army Ten-Miler, which each year attracts 35,000 runners from around the world.
Double-majoring in comparative politics and international history, Gabow focused her studies on genocide and mass atrocities. “My family is Jewish, and so, like most Jews, we were in some way affected by the Holocaust,” said Gabow, who wrote her thesis on the Guatemalan genocide of the 1960s.
But she struggled with required classes in military movement and combatives, which stress physical conflict and reactions to it. “I may be argumentative, which might explain my attraction to law school,” she said with a broad smile, “but I don’t really like getting into the ring and fighting people.”
Still, for the most part she enjoyed her time there, and the lack of freedom compared to the typical civilian college “didn’t bother me so much because I had an opportunity to do this very liberating thing, and that is running,” she said.
“What I really appreciated about West Point, perhaps above all else, was that it brought people from all backgrounds together,” she said. “I think most New Yorkers wouldn’t have the opportunity to meet people from the Deep South or Appalachia, as some examples. I think it imbues you with an empathy that a lot of people who don’t stray too far from home kind of miss out on.”
After college she served as a military intelligence officer at Army bases around the country, and she deployed to Qatar, working in counterterrorism, “which I really enjoyed doing, particularly given that my impetus for joining the military was to fight terrorism.”
Throughout her service, “In general, I got to work with amazing people,” including the many Gen Z soldiers she commanded. And, she added, “I never lost that belief, over the course of my military career, that the United States — while imperfect — is still great.”
Concerned about preserving limited government and individual liberties, she decided to go to law school after completing her Army commitment. “In some cases, you could argue those principles are imperiled here at home,” said Gabow, who is considering a public service legal career with a focus on protecting free speech.
“I think there are complicated questions being raised about freedom of speech, particularly on college campuses. I think that was brought to the forefront over the past year, but I think this problem has been festering for much longer than that. I would like to be in a position to figure out how we strike the balance of protecting free speech on campus while also protecting students on campus … I want to make sure that we have venues for the free exchange of ideas, both on campus and off campus.”
Gabow is a Black Family Fellow through the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, which comprises veterans and active-duty service members from Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Law School. A member of the Federalist Society and the Armed Forces Association, her primary extracurricular involvement is in the Law School’s Alliance for Israel (AFI).
“I will say a lot of students at Harvard feel very affected by October 7, and the Alliance for Israel, among other things, provides support,” she said. “I think for many of us it really reinforced our Jewish identity. I was raised secular, so while I was aware I was Jewish it wasn’t really an instrumental part of my childhood. But I think both during my military experience — the military takes religion pretty seriously — I was able to grow closer to my Judaism … [and] since October 7, I feel a lot more Jewish. I think AFI has done a good job of connecting people who feel similarly to people to support them, and faculty who support them.”
While stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina in 2021, Gabow met her husband, who was serving in U.S. Army Special Operations, including as a Green Beret. The couple married last year toward the end of Gabow’s military career. Gabow initially planned to matriculate in the Harvard Law School Class of 2026, but when she learned she was pregnant, she deferred for a year. This year, her husband is taking care of their son, Samuel, while Gabow concentrates on her 1L studies. After numerous deployments over his 16-year Army career, her husband “is relishing the opportunity to be a parent,” Gabow said.
“Having a child really changes your perspective on things,” she said. “Like most people at West Point and certainly most people at Harvard Law School, I was very focused on my own ambitions. I’ve found that I much prefer focusing on the wellbeing of this tiny human than strictly on my own wellbeing. No longer do I want to do great for the sake of ambition, I want to do great so I’m someone my son hopes to emulate one day. I think that’s a much more sustainable way to be ambitious.”
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