The university community will observe Veterans Day on Friday, Nov. 10, with a ceremony in Woolsey Hall, at which it will also pay tribute to a current Yale College student and an alumnus for their acts of service.
The event will begin at 12:30 p.m. with welcoming remarks by President Peter Salovey and Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews, and will feature remarks by Robert Henderson ’18, who served in the U.S. Air Force 2007-2015 and is now in the Eli Whitney Students Program (EWSP) at Yale. He is a former participant in the Warrior Scholar Project (WSP). Following his graduation from Yale this year, Henderson will pursue a Ph.D. in psychology.
The ceremony will pay tribute to Yale College alumnus Jesse Reising ’11, who co-founded the WSP and first launched it at Yale in 2012. Current Yale student Amanda Lloyd ’20, a cadet in the Yale Air Force ROTC (AF-ROTC), will be awarded the Gold Valor Award for her heroic acts this past summer in helping to save five family members from drowning in turbulent waters in Lake Ontario.
Reising, who is now a federal prosecutor in Chicago, had committed to the Marines while a Yale undergraduate, but a serious injury he suffered in the Yale-Harvard football game during his senior year made him medically ineligible to serve. He went to Afghanistan as a contractor and later attended Harvard Law School. He co-founded the WSP to help enlisted men and women leaving the military to prepare for college. The program is now at college campuses nationwide. Jared Smith, an alumnus of the WSP who is now in the EWSP at Yale, will introduce Reising.
The Gold Valor Award is the highest honor to be bestowed on a cadet in the AF-ROTC. Colonel Thomas McCarthy, a commander in the Yale AF-ROTC, will present the award to Lloyd, who transferred to Yale this year from Quinnipiac University.
The event will also feature an invocation by Christopher Mihok, a staff member at Yale who is co-chair of the Yale Veterans Network and served in the U.S. Air Force 1978-1998. Reverend Harry Adams ’45W, ’51 DIV, one of Yale’s oldest active veterans, will deliver the benediction. Adams entered Yale in 1942 and graduated on an accelerated schedule in order to serve in World War II. He is the Horace Bushnell Professor Emeritus of Christian Nurture at the Yale Divinity School and served as Yale chaplain 1986-1991.
The Yale Police Color Guard will conduct the presentation and retiring of colors in memory of fallen servicemen and servicewomen and in honor of others who have served in the military, and the Veterans Day Brass Ensemble (composed of Yale School of Music students) will perform the national anthem and present a musical salute to members of the armed forces.
The event is free and open to the public. Members of the Yale community are invited to share their gratitude for veterans and those currently serving in the military on the “It’s Your Yale” website. Read words of gratitude on the website.
Several other veterans-focused activities will also take place on Friday. Yale Students for Veterans will create a field of flags on Cross Campus beginning in the morning, and Yale military history tours will be conducted by ROTC students at approximately 1:30 p.m., immediately following the Veterans Day ceremony. In addition, a photo booth will be installed in Memorial Hall, sponsored by Veterans Count at Yale.
