{"id":64477,"date":"2021-11-08T11:11:47","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T18:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=64477"},"modified":"2021-11-08T16:00:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T23:00:02","slug":"views-veterans-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/views-veterans-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Views from NAU: On Veterans Day, honoring sacrifice without glorifying it"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Editor\u2019s Note: The \u201cViews from NAU\u201d blog series highlights the thoughts of different people affiliated with NAU, including faculty members sharing opinions or research in their areas of expertise. The views expressed reflect the authors\u2019 own personal perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"ZachBy<\/strong> Zach Hamilton
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Coordinator, Veteran & Military Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zach Hamilton is an NAU graduate and coordinator of the Franke Veteran Student Center. He served four years in the U.S. Marines.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Nov.\u00a011,\u00a0Veterans\u00a0Day, is\u00a0set aside\u00a0each year\u00a0to honor the service and sacrifice of our\u00a0military servicemembers.\u00a0On campus,\u00a0we\u2019ll be hosting\u00a0several\u00a0events that will recognize the veterans at NAU as well as those in our Flagstaff community.\u00a0I think these events are\u00a0an excellent opportunity for our veterans to share their experience and insight, as well as spend time with other veterans in the community.\u00a0For my own part, I\u2019m much more comfortable writing about my experience\u00a0than I am standing in front of people talking about it,\u00a0so\u00a0I\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to share it here.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The events in Afghanistan this year inspired me to reflect, with\u00a0a more\u00a0critical view, on\u00a0the time I spent\u00a0there\u00a0and the motivations I had for joining the military in the first place.\u00a0My\u00a0family has a long history of service in the military.\u00a0When\u00a0my job disappeared in the 2008 recession, my decision to join the Marines wasn\u2019t without precedent. As I prepared myself for the physical challenges of recruit training, I think my father had different concerns on his mind. He had been a\u00a0naval\u00a0flight\u00a0officer\u00a0during Desert Storm. He once cautioned me that the military can provide\u00a0experience that isn\u2019t obtainable anywhere else, but that I might look back at it someday through a different lens. I was\u00a0caught up in the romantic dream of dress blues and honor. At the time, I didn\u2019t really get the message. I shipped off to boot camp on the\u00a0Ides of March 2009.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A year and a half later, in September 2010, I boarded a plane with the rest of Kilo Company, 3<\/span>rd<\/span>\u00a0Battalion 5<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0Marines. We would spend the next seven months fighting to gain control of a small district in Helmand Province called Sangin. At the time, it was one of the most dangerous and kinetic regions on the planet.\u00a0Sangin district was\u00a0a verdant farmland that followed the Helmand River. For the Taliban, the poppy grown there was a major source of income.\u00a0It was vitally important to them,\u00a0and casualties\u00a0suffered by\u00a0both sides\u00a0reflected that. Still, we made progress. When we arrived,\u00a0the Taliban was there to greet us as soon as we left sight of our patrol base. By\u00a0early spring we had denied them access and influence over the local populace,\u00a0and\u00a0we had cleared major roadways\u00a0and protected major infrastructure. By the end of our\u00a0tour,\u00a0we had\u00a0near-complete\u00a0control of the district. We returned to California in April 2011 feeling triumphant.\u00a0By 2014, control of the district was given over to the Afghan National Army we had trained. They swiftly abandoned\u00a0Sangin to the Taliban.\u00a0Earlier this year we saw a similar story repeated on the national stage as the\u00a0Taliban regained control\u00a0of Kabul.\u00a0I was reminded of my father\u2019s warning.\u00a0Considering the outcome in Afghanistan, I turn to examine the things that I can\u00a0quantify about my time there\u00a0and search for lessons that have made me who I am today.\u00a0That deployment was a short and violent period in my life. From it,\u00a0I gleaned lessons on empathy, context for human suffering\u00a0and gratitude for peace.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ZachMy contract with the Marines was up in early 2013;\u00a0I never had any interest in re-enlisting.\u00a0In just those four years I had been overseas four separate times. In addition to Afghanistan, I\u00a0had visited South Korea,\u00a0Tonga, Australia, New Zealand, Kyrgyzstan\u00a0and\u00a0Germany, and even\u00a0spent\u00a0one day in a hotel in Bulgaria.\u00a0I\u00a0was ready to spend some time in just one place.\u00a0I knew I had the GI Bill and decided to come to NAU to finish my\u00a0bachelor\u2019s\u00a0degree.\u00a0In the eight years that I\u2019ve been here, first as a student\u00a0and now\u00a0as a staff member, I have met hundreds of other veterans.\u00a0I have been fortunate to hear some of their stories and each\u00a0expanded and built upon my\u00a0understanding of what it means to serve.\u00a0Every new student veteran brings their own story to this campus and contributes to the shared history of our institution. Their stories can enrich the conversation in the classroom and broaden our understanding of global events.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Returning to the subject\u00a0of Veterans Day,\u00a0I think it\u2019s important to raise awareness\u00a0of\u00a0the challenges that veterans face upon returning home. Just as important, Veterans Day is a time for us to examine\u00a0why\u00a0service was required in the first place\u00a0and hopefully avoid conflicts in the future.\u00a0A few months ago, we celebrated my son\u2019s first birthday. Someday I\u2019ll have to tell him about my experience in war, and I hope that he\u2019ll be more willing to listen than I was.\u00a0I hope that I can teach him\u00a0that Veterans Day is about acknowledging\u00a0the\u00a0sacrifices of our military\u00a0without\u00a0glorifying\u00a0it. I hope to teach him to\u00a0express gratitude for their service, but\u00a0still lament that\u00a0their\u00a0service was required in the first place.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*Editor\u2019s Note: The \u201cViews from NAU\u201d blog series highlights the thoughts of different people affiliated with NAU, including faculty members sharing opinions or research in their areas of expertise. The views expressed reflect the authors\u2019 own personal perspectives. By Zach Hamilton Coordinator, Veteran & Military Services Zach Hamilton is an NAU graduate and coordinator of…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":64482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-views-from-nau"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}