Veterans Honored with Memorial Service before FAU Game

By Gabriel Reyes

Veterans and their families were honored during MTSU’s 33rd Salute to Armed Services Saturday afternoon, leading up to the Blue Raiders’ game against the Florida Atlantic University Owls.

Veteran’s were given free tickets and food provided by State Farm and Barrett firearms. The Department of Veteran Affairs and Tennessee Valley Healthcare System hosted the “Vet Village”, where attendees could obtain information and ask about services for veterans.

The keynote speaker of this year’s veterans memorial service, which kicked off the day’s celebration at 2:00 p.m. in front of the Tom Jackson building, was retired Colonel Many-Bears Grinder, Commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Veterans Affairs beginning her speech with thanking MTSU for their support of veteran students and military dependents.

Grinder said while only one percent of American citizens serve in the country’s armed forces, the other 99 percent can help by standing behind them.

“I just came from the town square where on the twenty second of every month they have a stand in to raise awareness that twenty two veterans every day across this country die at their own hand,” Grinder said, referring to efforts by Reveille Joe Coffee Co. owner Matthew O’Dell.”There is something drastically wrong with that.”

In 2013 in Tennessee, 214 veterans committed suicide compared to the 197 in 2012, Grinder said.

Events such as the Salute to Armed Services thank veterans and help change the atmosphere that greets veterans coming home to one of appreciation and support rather than the “shame” that returning solders in Vietnam often saw.

She said her husband, a Vietnam war veteran himself, was left to hold down the household during her time away. While Grinder was deployed, her while mother underwent breast cancer surgery.

“If I had to worry about moving my mother in to a nursing home, if I had to sit there while she went through her breast cancer surgery and hold her hand afterwards, and worry about who was going to buy her depends diapers, I could not focus on what I had to focus on in Afghanistan,” Grinder said.

Five months after Grinder returned, her son and daughter-in-law were deployed together to Iraq. On February 21, 2010, Grinder’s daughter-in-law, Billie Jean, died in a helicopter crash in northern Iraq at 25 years old.

“Every one that serves sacrifices one way or another,” Grinder said.

Following the speech there was a silent auction in the Kennon Hall of Fame benefiting “A Soldier’s Child,” a Murfreesboro-based non profit which gives birthday and Christmas gifts to children whose parents died in combat.

An autographed guitar from the television show Nashville and a fiddle autographed by Charlie Daniels were among the items up for auction.

On the lawn outside the Hall of Fame, a picnic of burgers and hotdogs was provided to veterans and their families.

“It’s nice to be recognized as a veteran, as well as for the active duty members” said Michael Brzezicki, a former Chief Warrant Officer in the Coast Guard.

Brzezicki, a veteran of the Vietnam War, said he will be enrolling in MTSU’s Aerospace program.

“I’m going to learn how to fly a plane,” Brzezicki said. “I’m using my 9/11 G.I. bill to become one of y’all!”

Steve Estes, the head of the university’s department of Health and Human Performance, was also among the many who enjoyed the food being prepared and served by cadets in MTSU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps.

“I was what you would call a Navy brat,” Estes said. “We lived all over the world when [my father] was deployed or stationed.”

Estes said he lived on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base during his childhood, before being evacuated during 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis. He said his family was compensated for being up rooted with a commemorative ash tray.

“Back in 1971, it was an entirely different time if you were a civilian,” Estes said. “You had no desire to affiliate with anything in the military, ’cause we all wanted to stay out of Vietnam. Look at it 40 some years later and its a 180 degrees different. Every body is so very proud of the military and so much more appreciative of those who served.”

Estes said he is studying MTSU’s ROTC program’s leadership course. For him ROTC has the most effective leadership program in the university in hopes that it can serve as a example to other colleges.