Army veteran to deliver Veterans Day address
Released: November 1, 2005
Each year, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s department of leadership and military science (Army ROTC) conducts a Veterans Day observance on campus. As has been the custom, UW-Whitewater’s ROTC will commemorate this year’s Veterans Day with a ceremony at the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month, at the university flag pole in front of the Alumni Center.
Veterans, students, faculty and the general public are invited to join the ROTC in honoring the nation’s veterans.
This year’s featured speaker will be ROTC Cadet Ryan Yaun. The 27-year-old Freeport, Ill. native is attending UW-Whitewater after serving four years in the U.S. Army. Included in Yaun’s overseas duty was seven months of active duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Yaun served as a tank crewman during his duty in Iraq. He served as a gunner aboard an A1M1 Abrams tank while the U.S. forces moved north to Baghdad.
“I feel sometimes that our duties over there (in Iraq) get portrayed in a negative aspect,” Yaun said. “A lot of people don’t see the good things that we are doing. We opened up a number of schools in south Baghdad; those are some of the positive things that I like to reflect on.”
Yaun says he will use this year’s observance to remember the friends that he had while serving in Iraq that lost their life fighting for freedom.
For more information, contact Sergeant First Class Jeffrey Smith at 262-472-6212, email: smithje@uww.edu.
- Tom Pattison,pattisot@uww.edu
