Georgetown University honored veterans, service members and their families at a Veterans Day service Nov. 11.
Barbara M. Barrett, the 25th secretary of the U.S. Air Force, who managed both the Air Force and the newly established Space Force, reflected on the sacrifices of veterans and their families as the ceremony’s keynote speaker. The Georgetown University Student Veterans Association (GUSVA) and the Georgetown University Military and Veterans’ Resource Center (MAVRC) hosted the event to honor Georgetown’s veterans and military-connected families.
Interim university President Robert M. Groves, MAVRC Director Stephen Murphy and Fr. David Pratt, S.J., the Orthodox Christian chaplain at Georgetown, also spoke at the event.
Barrett said Veterans Day celebrates freedom by honoring the courage of those who served to defend the United States.
“Today is not the day of mourning — that’s the solemn duty of Memorial Day,” Barrett said at the event. “Veterans Day is a day of celebration and gratitude. Veterans Day reminds us that freedom endures, not by accident, but because of the courage, discipline and devotion of those willing to serve something larger than themselves.”
Barrett said Georgetown’s community of veterans demonstrates the importance of service.
“To the Georgetown veterans here today, your example enriches this campus and reminds every Hoya that service is not just a career, it’s a call,” Barrett said. “Their service reminds us that patriotism is a choice made every day, often in silence by men and women who put duty above self.”
Groves said the university values the unique experiences veterans bring to Georgetown.
“We acknowledge that you carry special burdens and challenges,” Groves said at the event. “We believe these are challenges to be addressed and opportunities to be embraced because of the unique perspectives that you offer and the important role that you play here in this community as leaders.”
Murphy said the area around Dahlgren Chapel previously served as a Civil War field hospital and that the university’s colors — blue and gray — honor the service of all Civil War veterans.
“Around the area where you currently sit, Union soldiers were treated in a makeshift field hospital in the aftermath of the second battle of Bull Run in 1862,” Murphy said at the event. “Our university colors, the blue and gray, commemorate veterans on both sides of the conflict.”
Murphy said the university’s growing number of military-affiliated students and graduates is a product of efforts by students, faculty and staff to create a supportive environment.
“Today, Georgetown University has 1,557 military connected students, active duty service members and ROTC,” Murphy said. “This is just a direct result of the collective efforts of faculty, staff and students to ensure the Georgetown community is supportive of those who have shouldered the burden of our collective defense.”
Murphy added that Georgetown maintains memorials like Lauinger Library — which commemorates Joseph Lauinger (CAS ’67), who was killed in the Vietnam War in 1970 — to pay respect to veterans in the university community.
“This campus is filled with numerous memorials for Hoya veterans who have given the ultimate sacrifice,” Murphy said. “Two examples of which are the memorial to first lieutenant Lauinger, a Vietnam veteran, in the lobby of the university library, and the World War II memorial located near the McDonough bus turnaround.”
Pratt, who led an invocation and prayer during the ceremony, said the prayer recognized the sacrifices of military service members while asking for guidance toward peace.
“We pause to ask for your blessings upon those who served, those who have sacrificed and their families and their friends,” Pratt said at the event. “And now we ask you also to look favorably upon us, that you would lift us up, that you would put us on to the path of peace and the making of peace.”
Groves said military service reflects an ability to give deeply to the surrounding world, connecting it to Georgetown’s values.
“It isn’t about accumulation; it’s a question of depth, of finding within ourselves that much more of what we are capable of providing the world,” Groves said. “Your commitment to doing more, and serving more, of being more through your military service captures this idea in wonderful ways.”
“Our university has a deep appreciation for the idea of service,” Groves added. “We are shaped by a tradition that puts service to others at the very core of what we do here.”
