Cornell will mark Veterans Week with a public celebration, a military appreciation luncheon, chimes performances and a walking tour of campus memorials from Nov. 9 through Nov. 13.
The opening celebration is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Statler Auditorium 185 and is open to everyone, according to the Cornell Chronicle.
The Veterans Colleague Networking Group is organizing the programming. Jessica Hsu, an Air Force veteran and the group's vice chair, said this year's events also recognize the nation's 250th anniversary while honoring student and employee veterans, alumni, retirees, ROTC cadets and midshipmen.
Celebration includes a combat veteran's reflections
Retired Army Col. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III, a visiting lecturer in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy, will speak at the Nov. 9 celebration.
His address, “The Armistice Is Not the Peace: Remembering Service, Reckoning with Sacrifice, Remembering Forward,” will examine why ending a war differs from securing lasting peace.
Wilson, a West Point graduate who founded the academy's Grand Strategy program, served 33 years on active duty. His assignments included chief of plans for the 101st Airborne Division and Multi-National Division-North in Iraq. He later led Joint Special Operations University and served as a senior civilian executive in the Defense Department.
He also holds three Cornell graduate degrees: a master of public administration earned in 1998, a master's degree earned in 2001 and a doctorate earned in 2004.
The celebration will feature the Cornell University Chorale, Navy ROTC midshipmen performing “Echo Taps,” a veteran appreciation slideshow and presentation of the Continuation of Service Award. A plaque donated to ROTC by the local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter will also be unveiled.
Luncheon, chimes and green lights
Cornell veterans, reservists, active-duty service members and ROTC students are invited to a military appreciation luncheon Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Willard Straight Hall's Memorial Room.
On Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, the Cornell Chimes will play the Armed Forces Medley, including each service's official song, at 1:10 p.m. and 6 p.m.
McGraw Tower's clock faces will be illuminated green that evening, reflecting the veteran advocacy campaigns Greenlight-a-Vet and Operation Green Light.
Memorial tour allows participants to join along the route
Marine veteran Jeramy Kruser, a member of the networking group, will lead a military history and memorial walking tour Thursday, Nov. 12.
It begins at 11 a.m. in Barton Hall, across from Statler Hall, with a visit to the Wortham Military Museum. The museum is the only stop on the tour that is not wheelchair accessible.
At noon, participants will move to the War Memorial at Lyon and McFaddin Halls. The stop includes a memorial shrine not normally open to the public, where visitors can view a manuscript listing 264 Cornellians killed in World War I.
The tour concludes from 12:45 to 1 p.m. in Anabel Taylor Hall's memorial rotunda, which contains memorials from World War II onward. Participants may join at any of the locations.
The tour will also discuss Cornell's military history dating to its founding as a land-grant university, when military training was required for male students. Kruser said the memorials connect the civilian campus community with Cornellians who served during difficult periods.
University joins county veterans expo
Cornell will participate in Tompkins County's Veterans Expo on Friday, Nov. 13, from 2 to 7 p.m. at The Shops at Ithaca Mall, 40 Catherwood Road.
Hanh Dinh, a Marine Corps veteran and Cornell's undergraduate student veteran program director, said the programs are intended both to connect veterans with one another and to improve understanding of service among the wider community.
She said Veterans Week can be a time of celebration for some and reflection on service and lost friends for others, while the university's work to welcome veterans and other nontraditional students continues throughout the year.
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