By Raegan Scharfetter/managing editor

As the nation prepares to honor the service of veterans, TCC plans to recognize these men and women with veteran-centered events on each campus.

This fall semester, TCC is home to more than 2,000 veterans districtwide.

In 2004, NW Campus created an Afghanistan/Iraq Memorial as a yearlong class project for former Cornerstone honors students. The professors teaching in the program at that time challenged the students to come up with a way to honor those from their generation who were making the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

This was built in part out of frustration by professors that students by 2004 were no longer paying much attention to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, memorial director Laura Wood said.

“On the Northwest Campus, we have had a long association with the Joint Naval Reserve Base, and so we had a number of active duty and reserve personnel taking classes who were being called into action and sent overseas,” she said.

A final Phase V and VI is being added this year and should be completed by early 2018 although they have had to overcome some problems including the permanent scaffolding now in place on NW Campus.

The original project design expected only a single wall of names but shows how history often unfolds differently, Wood said.

This is the only memorial on a college campus that honors all those who gave their lives and was one of the first memorials of its kind constructed in the country. Tags on the memorial have the names of individuals who at one time took classes at TCC.

Other campuses are hosting veteran-related events, such as the Veteran’s Appreciation Lunch, Armed Forces Birthday Celebration and Throwback Taco Tuesday on South Campus and the Veterans Day Roll Call, parade and Veterans Breakfast on TR Campus.

On TR, the events planned each day celebrate a different aspect of the military experience, TR veterans counselor Kevin Curry said.

South veterans counselor Valerie Groll said Veterans Day is significant to remember, honor and educate because the community moves fast through days with freedom and it becomes easy to forget or not even realize that it’s because of the military.

“We are free because of the lifelong sacrifices our military make, and there is nothing I can do or say to thank and honor them for the freedom I enjoy daily,” she said. “Without our military, we would not be the land of the free.”