World War Z author Max Brooks: “I went to the Army ROTC office at CMC my freshman year because… I thought, ‘America’s been really good to me and we’re at war (Desert Storm), and I’m going to give back…’ ”

For Claremont Colleges students who might think keeping their GPA up is a matter of life and death, consider what an army of zombies attacking campus would do to reorder those priorities. Well, that’s exactly what happened in author (and ’94 Pitzer graduate) Max Brooks’ apocalyptic 2006 bestseller, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

In an excerpt from the book (pg. 161 in one of the paperback editions), the narrator tells of “The Battle of the Five Colleges” in which 300 heroic students fight a horde of zombies. Given Brooks’ major (history) at Pitzer College, it could be a knowing nod to the like number of ancient Spartans who, vastly outnumbered, fought Xerxes invading Persians to a standstill at the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece:

  “Just outside of Greater Los Angeles, in a town called Claremont, are five colleges – Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna College. At the start of the Great Panic, when everyone else was literally running for the hills, three hundred college students chose to make a stand. They turned the Women’s College at Scripps into something resembling a medieval city. They got their supplies from the other campuses; their weapons were a mix of gardening tools and ROTC rifles. They planted gardens, dug wells, fortified an already existing wall. While the mountains burned behind them, and the surrounding suburbs descended into violence, those 300 kids held off 10,000 zombies! Ten thousand over the course of four months, until the Inland Empire could finally be purified. We were lucky to get there just at the tail end, just in time to see the last of the undead fall, as cheering students and soldiers linked up under the oversized, homemade Old Glory fluttering from the Pomona bell tower.

The book’s widely anticipated movie version starring Brad Pitt is set to open wide on Friday, June 21. Pitt has surprised fans across the country by showing up at advance screenings, and the film’s official Twitter profile (@WorldWarZMovie) is buzzing with reviews, photos, games and even WWZ gear. Reviews meanwhile have been divided, with Rotten Tomatoes, for example, giving the action blockbuster 81 percent, while the less impressed Telegraph says Brooks’ “thinly-veiled parable” had… “much in common with Steven Soderbergh’s” medical thriller Contagion.

Watch the WWZ trailer.

In a piece for Variety, chief film critic Scott Foundas describes World War Z as a film imagining “how the world’s ideologically disparate peoples and governments would respond if great masses of the populi did suddenly turn into rabid, flesh-eating beasties.” And while 5C students apparently fought zombies with admirable aplomb and smarts under Max Brooks’ vivid imagination, a publicist at Paramount Pictures says The Claremonts didn’t make it into the film version.

Which is too bad, right? But Max Brooks has an undeniable soft spot for The Claremont Colleges, and in fact, in his 2011 Commencement address to Pitzer College graduates, he gave a particularly nice shout out to Claremont McKenna College, where he was enrolled in ROTC his freshman year. “I got up every morning and I ran around and I threw up all over CMC, as I’m sure some of you have, too,” Brooks said, rousing laughter. “But even though I blew out my knees and my back (to this day I can’t run), I met some really awesome people and some career soldiers (in ROTC) who became characters in World War Z. I probably couldn’t have written that book if not for that experience.”

The impression was so deep, that Brooks says when he published WWZ, “I said, ‘Oh my god, I have to get some copies under my arm and come back here (to The Colleges), because this place has defined me. I even wrote about it in World War Z. A whole big zombie battle takes place right here.” His first stop with copies of his new book was the Army ROTC offices at CMC, he says––where he’d forged relationships that inspired his characters.

For those who haven’t read the book, World War Z is a follow-up to Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), and is a collection of individual accounts of a decade-long war between humans and zombies that decimated the Earth’s population. As narrator, Brooks assays the role of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission 10 years after the zombie’s have been eradicated.

Brooks, who has been called “The Studs Terkel of zombie journalism” for World War Z, is the son of director/actor/writer and legendary comedy bon vivant Mel Brooks, and actress Anne Bancroft.

Addressing Pitzer grads a few years ago, his talk was expectedly funny, while perhaps unexpectedly genuine. Although his parents (without naming them) were “hugely successful and never talked about their ‘struggle years,’ I got out of grad school and spent so many years struggling and just bashing my head against rejection,” Brooks said. He says he finally broke through with a two-season gig writing for SNL, during which time he was also finishing up The Zombie Survival Guide.

“All my life I wanted to be a published author, and here it was,” he said, reflecting on the moment his book hit the shelves. “And it did turn out to be the most successful thing I’ve done, and the book that would define my career and change my whole life,” he says. “But I didn’t know that at the time. Because when it first came out, all I had were some really, really crappy reviews––hugely, epically––crappy … The Los Angeles Times ran a two-page spread of my book and me, and essentially argued that my parents should have used birth control,” said Brooks, rousing another wave of laughs.

Perhaps now he’s even laughing––yep––all the way to the bank.

Watch Brooks’ 17-minute Pitzer College Commencement speech. His comments about how The Claremont Colleges defined him start at about 9 minutes in.

Bryant C. Danner, CUC Board Chair, recounted Walton’s many fine accomplishments and expressed appreciation for Walton’s bold leadership of the Consortium. Danner said that Walton “leaves behind a remarkable organization with an exceptional group of people—fully committed to continuing and building on Bob’s accomplishments. He will be missed.”

Walton joined the Claremont University Consortium (CUC) in 2007 after serving as chief financial and business officer for Wooster College. During his tenure at CUC, the organizational structure was revamped to encourage a higher level of service and quality, an award-winning renovation of a building to house administrative services was completed, a forward looking Land Planning Framework for consortium properties was approved by the CUC Board, and CUC carved out a prominent place as a key strategic partner of The Claremont Colleges.

Walton noted, “The CUC and The Claremont Colleges are extraordinary organizations. It has been my pleasure to have been given the opportunity to provide leadership these past six years. I look forward to watching from afar the continuing advances at The Claremont Colleges.

Walton beings his new position at Vassar on October 1, 2013.

“Bob’s dynamic leadership will be missed by his colleagues on The Council of Presidents of The Claremont Colleges,” said Lori Bettison-Varga, current chair of the council and president of Scripps College. “He has helped us build relationships nationally as well as in Asia. He has also strengthened our partnership with the City of Claremont and enhanced the level of services provided by CUC to our institutions.”

Claremont University Consortium

Claremont University Consortium is a service company that is a national leader in providing academic and business services. CUC provides shared services for The Claremont Colleges, the internationally renowned cluster of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate institutions serving more than 6,000 students. The consortium offers the expansive physical facilities and wide selection of courses, faculty, student services, and extracurricular activities of a university, and the personalized education of small private colleges. The consortium includes Pomona College (established in 1887), Claremont Graduate University (1925), Claremont University Consortium (1925), Scripps College (1926), Claremont McKenna College (1946), Harvey Mudd College (1955), Pitzer College (1963), and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Science (1997). For more information, visit www.cuc.claremont.edu.

• Monday, September 16 – Richard Breitman, professor of history, American University; author, FDR and the Jews (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2013).
• Thursday, September 19 – Nate Silver, leading statistician and political pollster, founder, FiveThirtyEight.com , author, The Signal And The Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t (Penguin, 2012).
• Tuesday, October 1 – Jeff Wasserstrom, professor of history, UC Irvine; author, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2010).
• Wednesday, October 2  – Piotr Stasiak, head of the Jewish Renewal movement in Poland.
• Monday, October 7  – Sheila Malovany – Chevallier & Constance Borde, translators of Simone De Beauvoir’s Second Sex (Random House, 2009).
• Tuesday, October 8 – Harold Koh, Sterling Professor of Law and former dean, Yale Law School; former legal advisor to the State Department and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
• Wednesday, October 9 - James Fadiman, psychologist and author, The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide (Inner Traditions/Bear & Company, 2011).
• Thursday, October 10 – Dorothy Fadiman, documentary filmmaker, director and producer focusing on social justice and human rights.
• Monday, October 14 – Joanna Michlic, director, Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust, Brandeis University.
• Wednesday, October 16 - Thanassi Cambanis, journalist specializing in the Middle East and American foreign policy; author, A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel (Free Press, 2011).
• Tuesday, October 20 – Zadie Smith, professor of creative writing, New York University; award-winning author, White Teeth (Knopf Doubleday, 2000), The Autograph Man (Knopf Doubleday, 2003), NW (Knopf Doubleday, 2013).
• Friday, October 25 (2:00 p.m.) – Phra Ajahn Jayasaro, senior Thai Buddhist monk and teacher.
• Thursday, October 31 (12:00 p.m.) – Tom Ridge, former US Secretary of Homeland Security, former Governor of Pennsylvania and US Representative for Pennsylvania’s 21st District.
• Monday, November 4 – Madeline Y. Hsu, director of the Center for Asian American Studies and associate professor of history, University of Texas at Austin; author, Strategic Migrations: Immigration Selection and How the Yellow Peril Became a Model Minority, 1872-1966 (in progress).
• Week of November 4 – Opening of the photography exhibit of Liu Xia, a prominent painter, poet, and photographer in China. She is the wife of the Nobel Prize Winner, Liu Xiaobo.
• (Date TBA) – Guy Sorman, contributing editor, City Journal; author, Economics Does Not Lie: A Defense of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis (Encounter, 2009) and The Empire of Lies: The Truth about China in the Twenty-First Century (Encounter, 2008).
• Thursday, November 7  (date tentative) – Vera Schwarz, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University; author, Place and Memory in the Singing Crane Garden (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
• Wednesday, November 13 – Gustavo Arellano, editor of OC Weekly, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (Scribner, 2013), Orange County: A Personal History (Scribner, 2010) and lecturer with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at California State University, Fullerton.
• Tuesday, November 19 – Music for tenor and piano by Benjamin Britten (born November 22, 1913); Charles Kamm, tenor, and Gayle Blankenberg, piano.
• Wednesday, November 20 – Gershon Baskin, founding co-chairman, the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), columnist for The Jerusalem Post and the initiator/negotiator of the secret back channel for the release of Gilad Schalit.
• Tuesday, December 3 – Chamber Choir Holiday Concert

Lee Skinner, Associate Professor of Spanish, and Ronald Riggio, Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology, have been named Associate Deans of the Faculty, effective July 1, 2013.  Professor Skinner will focus on the development and implementation of the College’s curriculum. Professor Riggio will direct the College’s faculty and research development efforts.

Professor Skinner received her Ph.D. in 1996 from Emory University, and her B.A. in 1991 from Brown University.  She is the author of History Lessons: Refiguring the Nineteenth-Century Historical Novel in Spanish America (2006), and of numerous articles and reviews dealing with Latin American literature and culture; she is also a frequent participant in scholarly conferences and serves on the editorial boards of many journals in her field. Recognized with awards for excellence in teaching, Professor Skinner taught at the University of Kansas before coming to CMC in 2008. Her role as Fulbright Program Advisor is but one of the many areas in which she has contributed to CMC. She replaces Professor Nick Warner, who after two years as Associate Dean will become Interim Dean of the Faculty.

Professor Riggio received his Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from the University of California at Riverside in 1981, and his B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University in 1977. After teaching at California State University at Fullerton, Professor Riggio came to CMC in 1996, where he has played a major role in fostering leadership studies. Professor Riggio is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and more than 100 articles. In addition to being a prolific scholar and popular teacher, Professor Riggio has served as Chair of the Psychology Department and as Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, in which capacity he has organized numerous scholarly conferences and other events held at the College. He replaces Professor Hilary Appel, who will be going on a well-deserved sabbatical after serving as Associate Dean the past three years.

According to the incoming Interim Dean, Nick Warner, “Both Ron and Lee are hard-working, effective, and passionate in their commitment to CMC. I am delighted to have them join the Dean’s office, and I look forward to working with them on behalf of the great faculty of this great college.”

The Nicklaus Award recognizes the top players at the Division I, II, II, NAIA and NJCAA levels. The last CMS men’s golfer to earn the award was Tain Lee in 2010.

Shigezawa capped an outstanding junior season at CMS by winning the individual title at the Division III NCAA Championships by four shots with a score of 283 (-2). Shigezawa played in nine tournaments this year—two in the fall and seven in the spring—winning five and finishing second in two others. He was the top Division III finisher in eight of the nine. Over his final six tournaments, five of which he won, Shigezawa shot eight under par over 15 rounds. A PING First Team All-American this season, he was also named the SCIAC Player of the Year.

“For him (Shigezawa) to be an All-American golfer and the top golfer in the SCIAC and Division III is amazing,” says head coach Bim Jollymour. “What makes Brad really special is his work ethic.”

The Nicklaus Award isn’t the only honor Shigezawa’s received this year. He was named SCIAC Male Athlete of the Week twice and is featured in the June 10 issue of Sports Illustrated’s venerable “Faces in the Crowd” column which goes out on newsstands on Monday, June 10. Shigezawa is the second CMS athlete to be featured in Faces in the Crowd this spring, the other being Athena softball pitcher Hayley Schultz.

Unfortunately, Shigezawa lives in Hawaii and couldn’t make it to the Nicklaus Award ceremony in Dublin, Ohio, near Nicklaus’ hometown of Columbus.

Nicklaus personally recognizes the recipients during the final round of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin.

“It was a great honor to be selected for the Nicklaus player of the year award,” Shigezawa says. “I am proud to have been selected for such a prestigious award.

“I have a lot of respect for Jack Nicklaus as both an athlete and a person,” Shigezawa continues. “Jack is obviously the most decorated golfer to date, and he has done so much for the game of golf. Although I am a little too young to have seen Jack play in his prime, his triumphs and legacy still carry on to this day and will continue to do so for as long as golf is played. As for who my current day golfing idols are Tiger Woods, need I say more!”

Shigezawa says that he started swinging the golf club at age two in the backyard of the man who introduced him to the game – his grandfather.

“Golf is one of those sports where no matter how talented you are, you need to continuously put in the time and effort into your practice sessions to see positive results,” Shigezawa says. “At the Division III level and especially at a great academic school like CMC, it takes effort to set aside enough time each week to work on your golf game”

According to Shigezawa, balancing golf and academics wasn’t exactly a hole-in-one. “Coming from a Division 1 background where mandatory practice time is set from 1:00 p.m. until dark Monday through Friday and your school schedule is set around that, it was a challenge for me to learn to work out an effective practice schedule once I arrived at Claremont,” he says. “Since our class schedule isn’t tailored around our golf schedule, it’s really up to you to put in enough time on your own time each week to improve your game.”

Shigezawa’s practice regimen includes trying to get to the course after classes on weekdays. “Around 1:00 p.m. and I try to stay till dark,” he says. “However, since I’m a biology major, I usually have a couple evening or afternoon labs each week so it makes practicing on those days tough. On the weekends there are no excuses and I’m out practicing a long as I can.”

But make no mistake, golf and good grades aren’t the only motivating factors in Shigezawa’s life. “Call me shallow,” he says, “but the prospect of owning fast cars someday motivates me to be successful in life. I currently own a 2009 Subaru WRX, which I’ve been working on and modifying for the past few years. It’s turning out to be quite the project and I am pretty happy with where the car is thus far. However, I am not quite done with the build just yet.”

Right now Shigazawa doesn’t want to impose any limits on his game. “I believe that if I continue to improve and work hard on my game, there’s no telling where my golfing career could take me,” he says.

Halpern’s words above open her fall 2012 TEDxClaremontColleges talk. They also frame an interview that the McElwee Family Professor of Psychology and George R. Roberts Fellow just gave to Live Science during the 25^th annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science. The article, by Denise Chow, is called, “Can’t We All Just get Along? What Psychology Tells Us About Political Gridlock,” and in it, Halpern–– former president of the American Psychological Association––discusses the great divide that has, in her opinion, “reached a much more hostile level.”

Read the interview with Live Science.

Or watch Halpern’s 19-minute TEDxClaremontColleges talk.

Halpern earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and has master’s degrees from Temple University and the University of Cincinnati, as well as a Ph.D. from the latter institution. In 2011 she received the Western Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Service to Psychology. The prior year she received the Roy P. Crocker Award for Merit, awarded by faculty at Claremont McKenna College. 

In doubles, Williams got its first point of the match in No. 3 doubles as Brian Astraschan and Bryan Chow defeated senior Alex Lane (Claremont, CA) and sophomore Nikolas Marino (San Diego, CA) 8-5. The Stags answered as the No. 1 doubles team of sophomore Joe Dorn (Washington D.C.) and junior Zhenya Pereverzin (Clackamas, OR) won in a tiebreaker 9-8 (7-5) over Trey Meyer and Alex Schidlovsky to even the match score at 1-1. Williams then took No. 2 doubles to take a 2-1 lead as Matt Micheli and Felix Sun defeated freshman Skyler Butts (Santa Ana, CA) and junior Neel Kotrappa (La Verne, CA) in a tiebreaker 9-8 (7-5).

Williams took the No. 2 and No. 3 singles matches, 6-2, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-4, respectively, to push its lead to 4-1. In No. 1 singles, Dorn narrowed Williams’ lead to 4-2 with a 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 win over Meyer. Chow then got the clincher for Williams with a 6-0, 6-0 win over senior Alex Johnson (Thousand Oaks, CA) in No. 5 singles as Williams avenged its 5-4 loss to CMS earlier in the season in Claremont.
#6 Williams (5) vs. #1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (2)
May 22, 2013 at Kalamazoo, MI (Markin Center) – NCAA Team Championships Finals

Doubles
1. Joe Dorn/Zhenya Pereverzin (CMS) def. Trey Meyer/Alex Schidlovsky (WIL) 9-8 (7-5)
2. Matt Micheli/Felix Sun (WIL) def. Skyler Butts/Neel Kotrappa (CMS) 9-8 (7-5)
3. Brian Astraschan/Bryan Chow (WIL) def. Alex Lane/Nikolas Marino (CMS) 8-5

Singles
1. Joe Dorn (CMS) def. Trey Meyer (WIL) 7-6 (7-2), 6-2
2. Matt Micheli (WIL) def. Nikolas Marino (CMS) 6-2, 6-2
3. Felix Sun (WIL) def. Alex Lane (CMS) 6-2, 6-4
4. Skyler Butts (CMS) vs. Zach Weiss (WIL) 4-6, 6-1, 3-1, unfinished
5. Bryan Chow (WIL) def. Alex Johnson (CMS) 6-0, 6-0
6. Neel Kotrappa (CMS) vs. Howie Weiss (WIL) 1-2, unfinished

Match Notes
Williams College 22-3
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 30-3
Order of finish: Doubles (3,1,2); Singles (2,3,1,5)
NCAA III Championship – Match moved indoors due to rain.
7-5 tiebreak at 1 doubles. 7-4 tiebreak at 2 doubles. 7-2 tiebreak at 1 singles

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Amherst jumped out to a 3-0 lead after doubles play. Safy Aly and Caroline Richman got Amherst its first point with an 8-1 win over junior Chloe Dobbert and freshman Yvonne Likomanova. Jordan Brewer and Gabby Devlin defeated senior Kristin Lim and freshman Caroline Ward 8-6 in No. 1 doubles. Jen Newman and Zoe Pangalos closed out the doubles sweep with an 8-5 win over sophomore Sarah Kukino and junior Crystal Lim.

In No. 1 singles, Brewer handed Kristin Lim her first loss of the season, 6-1, 6-2 to give Amherst a 4-0 lead. Sue Ghosh sealed the win for Amherst with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Crystal Lim. The Athenas end the season at 31-2 overall. Kristin Lim and Caroline Ward now head into the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships which begin on Thursday.

Dear Members of the CMC Community:

I am very saddened to report the untimely death of Ali Mirza ’15, who passed away early this morning. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

We will share more information with our community as it becomes available. Members of the CMC staff have been with Ali’s family.

Our deepest sympathies go out to the Mirza family and the CMC community.

Sincerely,

Pamela B. Gann
President

CMC President Pamela B. Gann also gave her final remarks to graduates as president, and Matthew Wissa ’13 gave the class presentation. Thirty graduates received Phi Beta Kappa honors this year. Commencement activities included the Hooding Ceremony for Master’s in Finance graduates, the ROTC Commissioning ceremony, and the reception for graduates, family and friends at Parents Field.

See video of the Commencement ceremonies

See full text of:

George R. Roberts’s Keynote address

Invocation by Rev. Brad Tharpe, Chaplain of the Claremont Colleges

Alumni Greeting by Carol Oliver Hartman ’86, President of the CMC Alumni Association

Student speaker Matthew Wissa’s remarks

President Pamela B. Gann’s Charge to the Graduating Classes

Success in a “flatter” world

During his keynote address, Roberts’ words blended intimacy with candor as he compared his experiences as a CMC graduate in the 1960s with the changes that have taken place in the world over the past five decades.

“When I look at you all and try to imagine what your lives will be like 47 years from now, it’s hard to imagine,” he said. “What I can tell you is that the world is going to continue to globalize. It’s going to get ‘flatter,’ as the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman calls globalization. Technology is going to accelerate and there’s going to be more competition….”

Yet he also sounded an encouraging note for the grads.

“But there are opportunities out there for you [and] you all have the benefit of graduating from one of the best schools,” he assured them. “You are ready to compete with the rest of the world, but you must be willing to embrace change and have an entrepreneurial spirit.”

Roberts also exhorted the graduates to put their best effort into everything they do, whether it’s a big project or a small, simple one because, he said, “if you can’t do the simple jobs right, you’ll never be trusted with the harder ones.”

He drew a laugh from the crowd as he recalled his early days, working at Bear Stearns in Manhattan. He said he gave the impression of being extremely dedicated and industrious because he’d arrive very early every morning and always leave late in the evening. The reason? He said he wanted to avoid the unpleasant heat in the New York subways.

Those long days, however, were decisive in his own career: As a result, he became acquainted with another early riser at Bear Stearns, Jerry Kohlberg, and they struck up a friendship that led Kohlberg to join with Roberts and Roberts’ cousin Henry R. Kravis ’67 to create KKR.

“I don’t expect you to remember me or anything I’ve really said,” Roberts said later, near the end of his speech, “but I would ask you to remember words uttered by Winston Churchill. He said that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

ROTC commissioning ceremony: An honorable 1%

Earlier in the day, a commissioning ceremony for ROTC cadets was held on campus in McKenna Auditorium.

“I don’t believe this group would be up here today if it weren’t for all the family, friends, and supporters out there,” said keynote speaker U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Greg Slavonic to a packed audience.

Among the 38 cadets gathered onstage to receive the gold bars of a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army were four CMC seniors – Eliot Adams, Rachel Cone, Chelsea Layman, and Kyle Woods. The other graduating cadets from the Golden Lions Battalion, which Slavonic praised as the “largest west of the Mississippi,” came from schools including Azusa Pacific University, CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona, and Pomona College.

Parents and other family members joined each cadet onstage to pin the gold bars on their shoulders and congratulate them. The pinning was followed by an old Army tradition, the Silver Dollar salute, and brief remarks from each newly-commissioned officer.

“I wouldn’t have made it through these four years without my family,” acknowledged a grateful Adams, who majored in International Relations and was commissioned into the Army Reserves as a Military Intelligence officer.

During Slavonic’s address, he asked the audience to acknowledge an important number concerning today’s U.S. military.

What is it?  1 %.

“Only 1% serve in the military today. 1% keep the other 99% safe,” he said, looking at the cadets. “1 % volunteer freely, every year, and make sacrifices and efforts on behalf of the rest of us.” He commended them for volunteering to begin their service in a world where the dangers posed by groups like Al Qaeda are very different from what he and older veterans have faced in their careers (Slavonic’s own career spans Vietnam, Desert Storm/Shield, and Iraqi Freedom).

What’s also different for today’s cadets? How the public views the uniform of a member of the U.S. military, Slavonic said.

“When I first wore my uniform, I was told to take it off and wear civilian clothes whenever I went out in public,” he said. “But that’s not true today. People will walk up to you and want to shake your hand because of all that you do. It shows how much trust your country has in you.”