Delaware State University to honor fallen troops with roll call

Dover, Del. ?

Delaware State University is one of more than 180 colleges nationwide that will honor veterans slain in the Iraq and Afghanistan during the past decade on Veterans Day this Friday.

DSU accepted the invitation to participate in the Remembrance Day National Roll Call, said Master Sgt. Wendelin Henry (USAF Ret.), coordinator of DSU?s Office of Veterans Affairs.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia will be represented in the roll call, Henry said. The Remembrance Day National Roll Call is sponsored by the Veterans Knowledge Community, a unit within the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators? Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

The Veterans Knowledge Community, in its second year of existence, is a community that works to advance best practices for student veterans.

DSU campus and community volunteers will read the names of the more than 6,200 casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, said Carlton Adams, coordinator of DSU?s student-veterans group, DSU FORCES.

?We?ll be out there for eight hours for every name to be read,? he said.

Henry saw the event as a good first major project for the relatively new student group DSU FORCES, she said. The group was sanctioned last spring.

?We?ve had a lot of students, deploy, serve and safely return,? she said. ?To my knowledge, all of our own DSU student veterans and military members who have deployed and served have come back. This day is to remember those who did not come back.?

The roll call is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. in the 2nd floor parlors of the Martin Luther King Student Center on campus, DSU spokesman Carlos Holmes said.

There will be a break in the reading of names at 1:30 p.m. for a Remembrance Ceremony, which will commence with a posting of the colors by the DSU Police Honor Guard.

At 2 p.m. DSU will then join a nationwide minute of silence.

In addition, a number of local military and veteran affiliated agency representatives will be present to provide information on what they do to support our troops, Henry said.

The event is open to all of the greater Dover community, DSU officials said. Anyone wishing to participate is asked to call Adams or Henry.

Lt. Col. Brett Morris, the National Roll Call coordinator, is a retired Army officer and the associate director for Veterans Affairs at Eastern Kentucky University.

He hopes the roll call sends a powerful message to the troops currently serving.

?The reading of individual names is very poignant because it emphasizes the significance of each and every life lost,? Morris said. ?Like the names inscribed at the new 9-11 Memorial in New York, each of the fallen deserves to be remembered for their sacrifice.

?There is no effort to raise money or promote individual programs,? he added. ?The event is simply to honor those who have sacrificed so much on our behalf.?

Source: http://www.doverpost.com/news/x76453645/Delaware-State-University-to-honor-fallen-troops-with-roll-call

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