Having spent a decade in the U.S. Air Force, Yale College senior Thomas Ghio is exceedingly grateful for all that the military has given him: a fellowship of life-long friends, an ability to lead, and a path back to college.
“I enlisted in the Air Force at 17 years old, just before graduating high school,” said Ghio, a native of Santa Cruz, California, during the university’s annual Veterans Day ceremony at Hewitt Quadrangle. “At that time, I was a young man searching for direction.
“I knew that college wasn’t for me, at least not then,” he said. “I played football and baseball, loved being part of a team and the camaraderie that came with them. And, if I’m honest, I enjoyed being the class clown who could always get a laugh, even if my timing was off.”
But as his graduation approached, he felt a gnawing uncertainty about his future. “I did not know what was next,” he said, “and I was afraid of drifting without purpose.”
He found purpose — and much more — over the next 10 years in the service. And now, as he continues his journey at Yale — where he is majoring in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology — it has been his involvement in veterans groups and mentoring opportunities that have focused his thinking yet again.
“My time in the Air Force taught me how to lead, but my time in these communities, military and civilian alike, has taught me why we lead: to lift others, to serve others, and to remind one another that we are stronger together,” Ghio said.
During the ceremony, on a windswept day as crisp as the uniforms of the ROTC cadets and midshipmen in attendance, Yale honored two other members of the university community — Michael Fotos, director of undergraduate studies for environmental studies and lecturer in political science, and Marla Geha, professor of astronomy and physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences — for their support of the university’s veterans.
Veterans Day at Yale 2025
Fotos and Geha have been instrumental in working with student veterans through the Warrior-Scholar Project, a national nonprofit founded at Yale that provides enlisted vets with skills and self-confidence vital to succeeding in college. Since its founding in 2011 by three Yale alumni, the Warrior-Scholar Project has enabled more than 2,250 student veterans to attend college preparatory boot camps around the country.
Fotos has taken students from his political science seminar on exchange visits to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, and he has hosted West Point cadets and a War College president and faculty at Yale. He has also advised Yale student veterans and other students enrolled in the Eli Whitney Students Program, which for more than 17 years has brought adult learners with an extraordinary range of life experiences to Yale — with a focus on individuals without a bachelor’s degree who have been out of high school for at least five years.
Geha was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in 2018 and received a grant to establish a first-of-its-kind program — the Research Experience for Veteran Undergraduates program — that brings veteran college students from across the nation to Yale each summer for a nine-week immersion in scientific research, helping them translate the knowledge and skills gained in military service to career pathways in STEM fields. Geha also played a key role in the collaboration between the Air Force ROTC and the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs in creating a new course, “The Space Domain and Global Security.”
In her own remarks, Yale President Maurie McInnis said Veterans Day reminds us that “our university educates not just prodigies of scholarship, but also prodigies of service.”
McInnis, the daughter of an Air Force veteran, offered a sweeping account of Yale’s own military community, going back to the Revolutionary War, when half of the officers from Connecticut had Yale degrees. Today’s military community at Yale remains vital, she said, with more than 100 undergraduates involved in ROTC, nearly 60 veterans who are enrolled as Yale College students, 150 veterans in Yale’s graduate and professional schools, 200 staff members who are veterans, and more than 10,000 alumni veterans.
“Universities, like veterans, are in service to the future, in service to all,” she said. “We are in service to hope.”
Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, secretary and vice president for university life, led the ceremony, which included remarks by Von Narcisse, assistant chief of police and co-chair of the Yale Veterans Network, and by University Chaplain Maytal Saltiel.
“Veterans undertake a notably wide array of roles across the university,” Goff-Crews said, as a scattering of snowflakes swirled through the plaza. “As students, mentors, teachers, and colleagues, your perspectives and skills enrich our community. You personify the ethos of military service: leadership, resilience, sacrifice, and commitment to our country, in any kind of weather.”
The event concluded with a spirited performance of military service anthems performed by Veterans Day Brass Ensemble, with students from Yale School of Music. As the signature song for each branch was performed, its veterans in attendance stood and sang along.
