Internship in Public History: Veterans History Project UCF 2022

 Week 13: Veteran's Day Commencement Ceremony The Ceremony This week on the Veteran's History Project our hard work and planning came to fruition. Despite the difficulty we found ourselves in last week, our team was able to successfully move and orchestrate the Veterans Day commencement ceremony this past Wednesday, November 16th.  Not only was it amazing to see our hard work honored by the event's success,  it was also amazing to see how deeply it was appreciated by the veterans that attended in our community. I had the honor of being present when UCF was designated a Purple Heart University;  we are now one of the five universities in the State of Florida to be recognized with this honor.  As the band played as the flag was raised,  it could be clearly communicated that each person that attended was filled with a sense of honor and pride as we remember those who sacrificed their lives for our country.  Meeting with a Purple Heart Veteran With the cer...

 Week 12: A Hurricane Brews This week in the Veterans History Project a multitude of events are forced to be cancelled. Ultimately, because of the misfortune that plagues the tropics this year, Hurricane Nicole made landfall this week, forcing the VHP team to reschedule the commencement ceremony originally taking place on the 9th of November to the 16th of November. With that, a story day was going to take place on November 11th, Veterans Day, with focus on members of the UCF Emergency Management. With campus being closed now until the 12th, Saturday, we are forced to move all meetings back a week.  Aside from the frustration that comes with rescheduled an event that was meticulously planned, I enjoyed the flag planting this past Sunday morning as students, ROTC, and other members through the Central Florida community gathers to place flags for every veteran enrolled at the University of Central Florida. One issue we ran into was the condition of the preservation of the f...

 Week 11: A Strange, Yet Exciting Interview This week on the Veteran's History Project I had the pleasure of interviewing a veteran with a story that is quite unlike any other I've seen. Unique is not descriptive enough, idiosyncratic is a better adjective. Our veteran was only in the service for about a year before her pregnancy led her to accept an honorable discharge, but it's her story leading up to her service that gives her time in our interview such importance.  Our veteran experienced a childhood unlike any other; From being adopted four different times with multiple name changes and a traumatic experience in the foster care system, our veteran certainly grew up quick. I found it most interesting that in comparison to others, our veteran joined for reasons regarding structure and discipline. Often times, veterans laugh when we ask them why they enlisted because most often, they didn't have a choice; Their name was called. Our veteran, however, noted that she joi...