Penn Honors the Nation’s Veterans

PHILADELPHIA -- In honor of Veterans Day, the University of Pennsylvania will hold a flag-raising ceremony on Locust Walk in front of Van Pelt Library at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 11. Co-hosted by the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs , Veterans Upward Bound Program and Veterans @ Penn Committee , the ceremony will include a presentation of colors by the U.S. Army’s 82^nd Airborne Division Color Guard and an invocation by Charles Howard, the University chaplain.

At the Penn Bookstore at noon the same day, the Warrior Writers will host a special visual-arts presentation and selected readings from the project’s second anthology by the Veterans of the Global War on Terror. Warrior Writers is a Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to aiding the healing process of veterans through creative outlets.

On Nov. 9, the U.S. Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps , which has a history of more than 70 years at Penn, raised its own flag for the first time, thanks to a new flagpole.

The Hollenback Center, home of the Penn NROTC , hosted a flag-raising ceremony after future officers of the Navy, Marine Corps and Army from Penn, Drexel and Temple completed a six-mile run that stopped at key historical sites in the city.

"Veterans Day is a somber, annual reminder of the costs of freedom," Ashley Lorenz, the battalion advisor at the NROTC unit at Penn, said. "We are eternally grateful and humbled by their personal sacrifice and hope to continue their legacy of honor, courage and commitment for centuries to come."

Penn’s affiliation with the Navy and Marine Corps dates back to the American Revolution, but the official Naval ROTC program here began in 1940, in response to the growing need for highly trained officers.

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