On one of the best Sunday mornings in October, on the campus of the University of New Hampshire in Durham, you practice foliage in and around the iconic buildings of your beloved alma mater. Coffee in hand, your appreciation of the autumn atmosphere is accompanied by memories. of categories in each and every one of the constructions you come across.
Your third-grade programs, beginning with your return to school through the post-September 11, 2009, GI Bill, have featured educational and entertaining discussions with esteemed college members as well as glorious scholars who were, and continue to be, respectful of my military. reports and as an older, non-traditional student.
The Dimond Library looks majestic on this fall morning. Bathed in a golden sun and surrounded by bursts of color in the surrounding wooden line, it will soon be filled with academics who have spent the first part of the weekend socializing and then take advantage of Sunday to prepare for their busy week.
Murkland Hall, which houses the campus’s language systems, reminds you of the Arabic and Spanish categories you took there over the years.
DeMeritt Hall stands nearby and conjures up photographs of calculus categories that, while difficult, were fun for younger scholars. The Memorial Union Building is his favorite spot on campus, as a student and alumnus, as it houses staff, a food court, and movie theaters, as well as the campus radio station and scholars’ newsroom. Not forgetting the arcade and basement club, where the academics of Improv Anonymous put on a big show every Thursday night. Nearby Memorial Field and Wildcat Stadium facilitate memorable sporting occasions and opening ceremonies.
As an inducted student, you’ve had a front-row seat to all that is wonderful about UNH. Attending the 2009 to 2023 categories, they have noticed exceptional academics and successful professionals, in business, medicine, nursing, and anthropological journalism and in all kinds of engineering and sports.
You’ve noticed that a new university president came up with a nationally identified pandemic control plan. Not only did UNH academics push the COVID-19 testing program on campus, but there were also chemical engineering academics who helped manufacture the vaccine when the pandemic was most threatening.
You may have noticed that the iconic buildings on campus have been internally restored while retaining the historic look of their exteriors.
These minds surround you on this golden Sunday morning; He continues walking back to his apartment in Durham to continue his archaeology.
A few months ago, you finally picked up your huge belongings at a local off-site warehouse. Finally, you’ve begun, with the help of the local network center and its useful garage options, the task of going through a lifespan of boxes and garage boxes. Some items need to be discarded, others like clothes and shoes need to be given to students, some items cause a resurgence of old interests like scuba diving. All of this sharpens your awareness of your adventure as a veteran and as a student. In fact, it is a matter of private archaeology.
Buried in some boxes are annotated notes from privileged courses in anthropology, oceanography, civil engineering, and journalism. You locate stories written for fiction and nonfiction courses, taken at the undergraduate and graduate level. These stories remind you of your state of mind when you wrote them years ago, what mattered to you and what mattered to you in the world. You find articles written for New Hampshire (UNH’s school newspaper), as well as Main Street Magazine, in which you demonstrated the courage and ethics of UNH painting. Rowers. (Gold Medal winners at the helm of the Charles Regatta in Boston in 2015 and 2017).
You recall how you told students in class over the years that they can compartmentalize and support the troops, even though they are opposed to war.
You realize how much of your work in college is rooted in your military experiences. You continue your personal archeology and find long-forgotten mementos from your three Iraq deployments with the U.S. Army Reserve. You are grateful that you saved your mail from the deployments. These include supportive handmade posters in crayon from younger cousins who, now in 2023, are grown up and have children of their own. And books and sports magazines. And pictures of family and friends who stayed in touch while you were away.
He delves even deeper into his private strata and sees relics from his first four years in the military, as a member of the U. S. Air Force. U. S. Air Force Base stationed at Pease Air Force Base. His military papers from 1987 to 1990, and then his re-enlistment papers from 2001, when he rejoined the army and was forced to overcome the 9/11 attacks.
He thinks about all the help he has gotten as a student-veteran, from entities like the UNH Military and Veterans Services and the Veterans Administration, his circle of family and friends, his Army Reserve unit, his fellow soldiers, professors and administrators. . and all the extraordinary young people you meet every day at UNH Durham. He knows that the future of the country and the world is illuminated through the torch of hope carried by today’s students.
You’re reflecting, not for the first time, on what it’s like for you to be part of the UNH community. And you appreciate how your alma mater has acted as a portal through which to channel all the threads of your life, in a way that’s energizing and meaningful.
Doug Rodoski is recently retired from the U.S. Army and received his B.A., writing MFA and master of arts in liberal studies at UNH Durham.