Thank you everyone for taking a moment to attend this ceremony and honor our community’s veterans. Brown’s Veterans Day ceremony is the result of work begun several years ago by a few Brown student veterans. Thank you to those student veterans for your hard work and dedication that went into creating this important annual ceremony.

On Veterans Day, I thought it a worthwhile endeavor to explore who veterans are and what they are not. I’ve met a number of people that have had little or no contact with veterans or the military. Understandably, this can result in misconceptions. Most often there are two images of the veteran that I encounter, neither of which is wholly accurate.

The first is an image we see during half time at a football game when veterans are recognized for their service or with a news clip of troops returning home. They convey characteristics like courage, duty, selflessness, loyalty, dedication and honor. The image depicts the veteran as an embodiment of universal ideals we all strive for.

It’s the veteran as a hero.

A less appealing image, though equally distant from reality, also exists. It is marked by concepts like PTSD, unemployment, troubled, disability, injury, or homelessness. We might encounter this image during a TV commercial that’s playing sad music, showing disabled veterans and asking for donations.

It’s the veteran as a victim.

It’s important to understand that these images do not convey the full story. There is no single way to define a veteran or capture the entirety of their experience. Veterans are individuals with unique experiences.

Just as in the larger society, people in the military fulfill roles in a number of different areas. A few of the many functions service members perform include administrative roles, doctors, intelligence specialists, pilots, linguists and combat roles.

Veterans might have performed these functions in any one of the military branches. Each branch has a distinct culture and values. We all came to the military with different personal situations, backgrounds, personalities, and goals, further individualizing our experience in the military.

Those of us who have left the military all have a different experience with their transition. Each person engages with the challenges and nuances of civilian life in their own way.

The diversity of experiences that define a veteran are infinite.

Identifying as a veteran can mean a very different thing from one person to the next. The one thing we do share and that we’re united by is the commitment we made by taking an oath to defend the nation.

When speaking to a veteran about their service you may hear them say something along the lines of:

“I was just doing my job.”

I think that simple statement says a lot about how we feel about our service and what it means to be a veteran.

I’ll leave you with a couple more thoughts. Today is a day of celebration. We celebrate and recognize the men and women who are products of and served for this nation.

We should pay a special tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and have lost their lives. Please also keep in mind the men and women stationed at home and deployed abroad. Think of the family members missing their loved ones.

Today is Veterans Day but it’s not just for us. It’s a day for the entire nation to join together in acknowledgement and support for our veterans.

Thank you for being here and have a wonderful veterans day.