Western Connecticut State University's Student Veterans Organization fought through the wind and rain this week to display 6,700 flags on the midtown campus to honor each soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the Veterans Day Program Friday, President James Schmotter said, "We're here to join hands and to support veterans of all conflicts and all periods."
The student veterans organization at WCSU has about 175 members today, and Schmotter said the university is there to help.
"We want Western to be veteran-friendly," Schmotter said, meaning the university can help or partner with organizations that can provide veterans with employment training. "We do not forget what you have done and what you are doing."
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal said veterans made it possible for him to be free to attend Friday's ceremony and speak his mind. That's true for the worship services people will attend this weekend, and its true for the people's right to assemble and to ask the government for help, Blumethal reminded the WCSU audience.
"These freedoms are not free. They are bought with the blood of veterans," Blumenthal said.
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said veterans who died for their country lost two lives, the first was the one they lived up until they served, the one typically with their parents and brothers and sisters. But they lost a second life, Boughton said, the one they didn't get to live. They didn't have a wedding or see the birth of their child or graduation or a long career.
"They gave two lives," Boughton said. "It's something we don't reflect on enough."
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