Skidmore College honors veterans

The Skidmore community gathered to recognize the sacrifices and service of members of the armed forces at a campus Veterans Day ceremony. 

Skidmore veterans and many other community members participated in a somber ceremony to lay a wreath and raise the flag as students Wynton Jarvinen ’24 and Annie Hageman ’23 played taps.  

Professor of International Business James Kennelly, who served in the U.S. Air Force, described the diversity of Skidmore’s veterans, who are staff, faculty, and students.  

“We are a disparate bunch, but we have at least one shared experience in addition to our connection to this wonderful institution, and that is our service to our country,” Kennelly said. “Our veterans have demonstrated what patriotism — love of country — is in what they have done, in what they’ve sacrificed.” 

Parker Diggory, director of religious and spiritual life, said it was fitting that Veterans Day developed from the armistice that ended World War I, “not the anniversary of a complete peace, or a real end to the war even, but the anniversary of a tenuous hold on cessation of hostilities.”  

“Even now as we pause on this Veterans Day, we have still not learned the lessons that will allow us to live in lasting peace. So we honor those who know the costs of war — today, especially veterans — and the lessons that they can teach us,” she said. “We remember the ideals for which so many have fought — the ultimate goals of justice and peace.”  

President Marc Conner spoke of veterans’ service toward a greater good and the hopeful mission of a liberal arts college.  

“The people we recognize today are people who embody hope. To me, this is both a somber but also a celebratory day — a day when we think about hope and what hope brings out of us: It brings out the best in all of us.”