In his Washington office, Rep. Seth W. Moulton ’01 (D-Mass.) keeps a framed photo of himself as a Harvard undergraduate, perched on the roof of Memorial Church.

The roof and steeple are restricted to authorized University maintenance and event staff. Moulton said he still is not sure why he was allowed up in the first place.

But when asked to reflect on his Harvard years, Moulton returned again and again to Memorial Church.

Moulton, then a physics concentrator, spent much of his time at the church as an organist and chorister. He said the people he met there gave him some of “the most important preparation” for his future career.

And when the church’s minister at the time urged Moulton and his peers to think seriously about how they would give back to the world, Moulton decided to enlist in the Marines just days after graduation.

When he returned to the U.S. from Iraq, he again found himself at Harvard, pursuing degrees from both the Harvard Business School and Kennedy School. And as he rekindled relationships with mentors from his undergraduate years, he worked to bring programming for veterans to campus.

Now, despite his three Harvard degrees, Moulton has largely quieted his Harvard affiliation on the campaign trail as he challenges longtime incumbent Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). Instead, he has foregrounded his time as a Marine and argued that the Democratic Party needs generational change.

But interviews with more than a dozen of Moulton’s peers, fellow Marines, and mentors reveal the influence Harvard connections had on his life — from pushing him toward military service to helping put his name forward for Congress.

From Memorial Church to Marine

Moulton was initially drawn to Harvard not by its academics or prestige, but by its rowing team.

He had excelled as a varsity rower at Phillips Academy Andover, though he conceded that he “probably should have had bigger reasons” for coming to Harvard than liking the team’s coach at the time.

Moulton spent the first two years of his undergraduate career on the water before leaving the team and dedicating much of his free time to the church as an upperclassman.

He was a frequent presence at the church — playing the organ, singing in the choir, and serving as an usher. Moulton said the daily morning prayers were his favorite Harvard tradition, which he attended “almost every day.”

It was also at the church that Moulton found a key mentor in the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who oversaw Memorial Church from 1970 until his death in 2011. Moulton said it was Gomes’ message that pushed him toward the Marines.

“He told us very bluntly that we had tremendous opportunities and privileges as Harvard undergrads, and we should think about how to give back,” Moulton said in an interview.

Moulton enlisted shortly after graduating in 2001. The Sept. 11 attacks came just a few months later. He went on to serve four tours of duty in Iraq before leaving the Marines in 2008.

“The war at that time felt very far away, and no one I knew was going,” classmate Alexandra H. Dean ’01 said. “He was just very clear that was his sense of service, he had to do that.”

Moulton has said he disagreed with the war — later appearing in a 2007 documentary criticizing the government’s handling of the occupation of Iraq — but still wanted to serve the country.

He led a platoon during the 2004 Battle of Najaf, where he served with Capt. Ann G. Fox. Fox described Moulton as “extremely thoughtful in some very complicated complex situations.”

That trait set Moulton apart in the eyes of retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, who asked him to voluntarily serve his third and fourth tours.

“He was a very bright positive force. I mean, you have these positive forces, not always with substance, and he had enormous substance,” Petraeus said in an interview. “He clearly had brains, he had a great academic record.”

Moulton was discharged in 2008 with the rank of captain. He was later awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor for his service.

Moulton said he “certainly would never have run for Congress” if he had not enlisted. But for many who knew him as a student, there was little sign that he would one day launch a political career.

Switching Tracks

Though Moulton showed some interest in government as an undergraduate, he avoided the Kennedy School and Institute of Politics because of what classmate Matt W. Thomson ’01 described as a “distasteful” culture of self-ambition.

“It was all a little bit too much for the award, and not for the reason,” Thomson said.

Instead, Thomson recalled Moulton considering what physics could contribute to the world.

“He was really interested in this idea of service and what’s the best way a Harvard student could orient their life to service,” Thomson said, adding that Moulton “was really interested in trains” and improving American infrastructure.

As Moulton spent more time at Memorial Church, Thomson said, his interest in religion also deepened.

“Seth was very academic, but it’s hard to say which was more important,” Thomson said. “I would say the religion stuff was more important than the physics in terms of a center, although we all loved physics and learning about our understanding of the natural world.”

When he was not at Memorial Church, Moulton returned to Currier House. He recalled being “absolutely devastated” on Housing Day, but eventually grew to appreciate the House.

“My experience with Currier was I thought it was the absolute worst house physically, and it had the most amazing people at Harvard,” Moulton said.

Thomson remembered setting up a grill on a Currier dorm balcony with Moulton and cooking for their fellow Currierites.

“People in the dining hall would give us stacks of burgers and cheese and buns and stuff that we could grill, and so we would do all that, and then it would gradually get less and less organized,” Thomson said.

Moulton said his favorite study spots were the Law School Library and Hilles Library, though he often spent late nights in Currier common rooms, falling asleep while working through physics problem sets with Thomson.

Thomson said the two had “a lot of time to talk” as they worked late into the night. One of Moulton’s passions quickly became clear: trains.

“Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do with their life, and you had huge numbers of people doing like: doctor, lawyer, finance, consulting,” Thomson said. “So the trains thing sticks out to me as something that was different.”

On the Ballot

Years later, Moulton had moved to Texas to work on a high-speed rail project when he was first asked to run for office in his home district.

He said no — five separate times.

“I said no in five different conversations before finally saying, ‘okay, fine, I’ll consider it,’” Moulton said.

Moulton said he “didn’t grow up interested in politics,” but his time in Iraq exposed him to government dysfunction. Eventually, he said, he “decided to give it a shot.”

He was approached by New Politics, a nonprofit that recruits veterans to run for office nationwide. The group had received Moulton’s name from another Harvard mentor: David R. Gergen.

Gergen, a longtime presidential adviser, first met Moulton when he was an undergraduate at a dinner in Memorial Church. The two kept in touch. Moulton turned to Gergen, who had served in the Navy, for advice about joining the Marines, and Gergen sent him letters while he was stationed in Iraq.

When Moulton returned to the Kennedy School for his master’s degree, Gergen was director of the Center for Public Leadership. The two worked closely to expand the Center’s programming for veterans.

“I was listening to Gergen talk, and he said, ‘You know, there’s this bright young man, and he would be a great candidate for office,” said Scott Ferson, the chief strategist of Moulton’s first congressional campaign.

According to Ferson, the team first asked Moulton to run in 2012 on Gergen’s recommendation — but they asked him to run as an independent because he was not a registered Democrat.

Moulton has long been known for his moderate views compared with other Democratic leaders — a point of pride for Moulton, according to College classmate Kevin W. Carr ’01. Carr said he was surprised when Moulton, who had long refused to confirm any party affiliation to his peers, finally ran as a Democrat in 2014.

Moulton’s first race for the House was an uphill battle: a Democratic primary challenge to nine-term incumbent John F. Tierney. But however important Harvard had been in shaping his career, Moulton intentionally avoided mentioning his alma mater on the campaign trail.

“Voters don’t like people who went to Harvard,” Ferson said. “He had three degrees from Harvard, and if you ever said that to a voter, my sense is, even if they liked you, they would say, ‘Who do you think you are?’ So we didn’t play that up.”

A similar strategy has emerged in his bid against Markey. Moulton has rarely referenced his education since launching his campaign, instead returning to a message of generational change and repeatedly arguing that the 80-year-old Markey is too old to run after a five-decade congressional career.

Though Markey won the Massachusetts Democrats’ endorsement on May 30, Moulton had secured enough delegate support by late May to put his name on the primary ballot. His poll numbers have also taken an upward turn in recent months.

Still, Moulton acknowledged in an interview that Harvard — and the people he met there — helped shape the path that followed.

“The best thing I got out of Harvard were mentors and friends,” Moulton said. “I think if I could go back, I would spend more time learning from the other people at Harvard rather than just from the classrooms and textbooks.”

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at mblon.50. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.