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By D.G. Martin

My wife Harriet and I were grateful last month to be invited to the Annual Tar Heel Tribute on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

The invitation explained, “Carolina is proud to have many members of the staff, faculty and student body who have served or who are currently serving in the military. Their leadership and service to both the country and the University is celebrated with the Tar Heel Tribute, an annual event in honor of the many contributions of the veterans and service members in the Carolina community.

“The Tar Heel Tribute is an annual in-person event for Carolina veterans and typically includes a complimentary luncheon with a special gift and keynote presentation.

“This event is sponsored by the Division of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity & Compliance in partnership with the Carolina Veterans Resource Center within the Office of Dean of Students.

“Carolina is proud to have many members of the staff, faculty and student body who have served or who are currently serving in the military. Their leadership and service to both the country and the university is celebrated with the Tar Heel Tribute, an annual event in honor of the many contributions of the veterans and service members in the Carolina community.”

“This event is sponsored by the Division of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity & Compliance in partnership with the Carolina Veterans Resource Center within the Office of Dean of Students.”

My wife and I were even more excited when we learned that our son Grier would be delivering the keynote address. He is the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

The invitation explained, “Secretary Martin was appointed to lead the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (NC DMVA) by Governor Roy Cooper on April 1, 2024. Secretary Martin is a retired Army Reserve soldier with service as a judge advocate and a field artillery officer, deploying to Afghanistan in 2002-03. He received a B.A. in history from Davidson College, and a J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law where he was a Note Editor of the North Carolina Law Review. He also has a Master of Laws in military law with a concentration in international and operational law from the Judge Advocate General’s School. His awards include the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, the National Guard Association of the United States Charles Dick Medal of Merit, and the N.C. Disabled American Veterans Legislator of the Year.”

In his short talk the speaker reviewed the many historic connections between the university and the military, including, of course, the service of students and alumni during World War II. He noted how the Navy’s prefight program brought important people to the campus including baseball star Ted Williams and future U.S. president to the campus for training.

During and before World War II, the university actively cooperated with the military in projects such as the Navy preflight program which prepared stud students from North Carolina and all over the country for training as Navy pilots.

The project brought more than 10,000 people to the campus. They brought their different backgrounds and strongly held beliefs.

As they were transforming the UNC campus with new buildings, new experiences and necessarily bringing all the university’s resources, physical and teaching procedures to serve or training and developing training procedures, and providing physical resources for the training, and how all of this brought people and activities together so that the university was never the same.

They learned to set aside their differing viewpoints, resolved conflicts and came together in common effort to win the war.

A similar challenge, according to the speaker, faces today’s university with the county divided and crippled by internal conflicts.

Working together with its students the university can again help us to overcome the divisions that weaken us.

D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s North Carolina Bookwatch.

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