Lipscomb’s Veteran Services hosted a Veterans Eve Celebration that involved a parachute demonstration onto the quad Monday morning.
The 101st Airborne Division, the Army’s oldest parachute jump team, flew through the air above campus before two jumpers, one carrying a POW flag and the other the American flag, descended onto the field. Students and members of the community lined the sidewalks around the quad in front of the Burton Science building to watch the demonstration.
Prior to the jump, the national anthem was performed by the Lipscomb Jazz Ensemble. Then Lipscomb student and Marine Corps Corporal Matt Proctor gave the invocation. As part of the ceremony, an American flag was presented to veteran Christopher Long, and a Tennessee state flag was presented to Dean Scott McDowell.
Before the end of the ceremony, Lieutenant Colonel John Sapp spoke about the event and about the importance of Lipscomb’s Yellow Ribbon Program that allows veterans to come home and receive an education. He also talked about being thankful for veterans as well, and Dean McDowell closed out the ceremony with a round of thanks.
Lipscomb’s Yellow Ribbon Program works hard to create an encouraging and beneficial community for veterans. Corporal Proctor talked a little bit about how they hope to build a connection between veterans and traditional undergraduate students.
“There’s an opportunity for those undergraduate’s to see the life experience that veterans have, and the face of war is sometimes very different than the faces of a traditional undergraduate student,” Proctor said. “There’s a lot that can be learned in order to communicate outside of the undergraduate experience.”
Proctor was also very happy with the event as a whole.
“It’s been a wonderful thing. It’s been just a taste of what we hope that we can accomplish more in the future. A lot of awareness has been raised.”
The community that has already been formed thanks to the Yellow Ribbon Program and the veterans in it will continue to grow Proctor hopes for.
“I know the veteran program itself here on campus has continued to grow, and we hope that it will continue to grow more,” Proctor said. “But this is all part of this community that we are trying to create, and hope that we can create a community of veterans and traditional undergraduate students.”
Photo by Sam Webb