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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW)- Both military and university dignitaries gathered on the North Terrace of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia on Friday afternoon to remember and honor the past, present, and future service members of the United States military.
President Scott Beardsley, Vice President Dean Krehmeyer, and Provost Brie Gertler were all in attendance, as well as prominent officers representing all branches of the service.
Members of the three ROTC corps at UVA had been standing guard and holding vigil for 24 hours, which concluded with Friday afternoon’s ceremony.
They were doing so to honor servicemembers who were killed, missing in action, and incarcerated as prisoners of war, both currently and during previous conflicts.
The ROTC cadets set a table for four, one place for each branch, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, which each implement on the table, down to the chairs, holding a symbolic, honorific meaning, to hold in remembrance those who paid the price for answering the call to service.
Friday afternoon’s event also highlighted the contributions of the University of Virginia’s students and faculty over the years to several conflicts American service members fought in.
Fleet Admiral William Halsey, a prominent figure in the pacific theater of the Second World War, and Major General Eugene Caffey, who served with distinction during the allied invasion of Sicily and the storming of Utah Beach at Normandy, are just two of the service members with storied careers who graduated from the University of Virginia, Halsey from the School of Medicine, and Caffey from the School of Law.
Another of those former Wahoos, Maj. Gen. Robert Borcherding, current Deputy Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army and UVA School of Law Graduate, took the Rotunda steps to deliver remarks to the assembled ROTC Corps and members of the public who took in the ceremony.
Borcherding quoted Thomas Jefferson in reminding the assembly of the true purpose of Veteran’s Day, to straddle the line between protecting peace and readying for war, saying that “peace would not be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of nations can be preserved.”
“This tension, this hope for peace, coupled with the reality of conflict, is as old as our republic,” Borcherding said.
Borcherding told the tale of two brothers, both UVA graduates, the Tucker Brothers, who served in the First World War in a hospital unit that including so many Virginia faculty, students, and alumni, that it was known as the UVA unit. Adding an anecdote about his roommate at West Point, also a chaplain, who served with him in the Middle East, Borcherding spoke to the commitment of Chaplains to only answer deploy into a combat zone unarmed, both with the goal of ministering to their fellow soldiers, treat the wounded, and comfort the injured, highlighting the impact they made upon their fellow humans.
“While grand decisions are made on a grand scale, the impacts are always human.”
Another chaplain made her voice heard with a moving invocation at the start of the ceremony.
“We pray and we ask that you will bless us to continue to be unified, to lead with compassion and empathy, to guard the borders of our nations, and to help those who you would entrust us to fight for and with,” National Ground Intelligence Center Chaplain Tecara Dade said in her prayer.
Borcherding, who began his remarks with a customary and hearty “Wa-ho-wa!”, was presented with a Jefferson Cup as a token of appreciation by the Virginia ROTC Corps.
In a touching moment of unity, the ceremony concluded with 21-gun salute by members of the Gregory Guard at Virginia Tech, who made the trip to participate in the ceremony.
The 40-minute ceremony carried a somber and heavy air, transcending patriotism and not providing shallow glory of those who chose to defend the country, but rather putting remembrance at the forefront for those who put their lives on the line, those who returned, those who did not, and those still serving, and showing them what their service means to the citizens of the Charlottesville-Albemarle community.