By Allie Rackerby
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year, the University of Portland ROTC programs co-hosted a ceremony honoring our country's veterans and service members. This year's ceremony was flawless. The event started with a 24-hour vigil at the Praying Hands Memorial. Each brick creating the broken walls represents a student-soldier from UP. Most of the bricks represent student-soldiers from WWII, but there are also hundreds from WWI, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Gulf War. A joint-service guard stood in the cold throughout the night, remembering the sacrifice many UP students have made.
The ceremony itself started with a joint color guard and an introduction of the guests of honor. Before the keynote speaker the National Anthem was played. Right as the word "free" was sung by cadet Kourtney Kugler, an F-15 flew over campus. The ground shook. Timing could not have been better. The most honored guest and keynote speaker was Lt. general Dana T. Atkins, a three-star General in the United States Air Force. He graduated from the University of Portland in 1977, and was in AFROTC during his four years here. Atkins gave a speech urging Americans not to forget veterans and to help them in any way we can.
After the speech was a 21-gun salute. Twenty-one blanks were fired into the air to commemorate our fallen veterans. This was another joint-service project, led by cadet Andrew Riley. After a final changing of the guard and a closing prayer, members were invited to a reception on the third floor of Franz Hall. While most ROTC cadets were eating, Atkins and other guests were invited to watch a performance by Mitchell's Rifles, a rifle-spinning club that has been practicing for this short event for weeks.
Both ROTCs on campus are cadet-run. The ceremony, vigil, 21-gun-salute, color guard, flyover, and reception were all planned and implemented by students. This year the entire day was headed by Arnold Air Society cadet commander Chris Schmidt, but every ROTC cadet helped in one way or another. Colonel Huffman, the AFROTC commander of Detachment 695, said in an e-mail that "General Atkins and those in attendance had nothing but words of high praise for the professionalism with which you conducted every aspect of these events. We were honored to host him and he was delighted to see that ‘his' detachment is still leading the way."
This event was a major success and we can only hope to have honored the veterans and service members that have come before us. They are the ones that deserve to be thanked. Without their sacrifices we would not have the freedom that America is so proud of. So please, thank a veteran – and not just on Veterans Day.
Allie Rackerby is a sophomore engineering management major. She can be contacted at rackerby13@up.edu.
