Military Emphasis Week to honor soldiers and their families

• Military Emphasis Week features a hockey game, football game, Veteran’s Day Parade and special Military Appreciation Convocation.
• Students have opportunities to participate by praying for fallen soldiers and their families and collecting food to send to soldiers in the Middle East.

 

Liberty University Office of Military Affairs is hosting the first LU Military Emphasis Week, Nov. 4-11, since it became the first Purple Heart University in Virginia.

 

The celebratory week kicked off Saturday Nov. 4, during Liberty’s Family Weekend, with Liberty’s hockey team falling to Stony Brook University, despite beating Stony Brook the previous night 8-2.

 

The celebration continued Monday Nov. 6 at the Worley Prayer Chapel Military Night of Remembrance. The ceremony remembered the fallen soldiers who gave their lives for freedom and honored the soldiers and their families’ sacrifice.

 

Nov. 6 was also the first day the School of Nursing, partnered with the American Red Cross, collected donations for servicemen and women in Kuwait, Djibouti and Iraq. The school is collecting snacks like beef jerky, candy and granola bars in the school’s office or before and after the Military Appreciation Convocation Wednesday Nov. 8. Donations can be dropped off until Nov. 11.

 

Nov. 8 will It albe a special military-focused Convocation featuring Veteran Special Operations Force Recon Marine Chad Robichaux. Robichaux, who had an early career as a law enforcement officer, was deployed to the Middle East eight times and developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Through his struggle with PTSD, Robichaux founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation for veterans and their families to find healing and hope while they walk through the same battle Robichaux’s family did. Robichaux was also featured in the “I Am Second” documentary series May 2016.

 

“You see what man can do to another man, what hatred can do to a culture … you can’t make sense of it, you can’t process it. It wears on you,” Robichaux said during his “I Am Second” documentary.

 

Military Emphasis Week will conclude Saturday Nov. 11 with the first Veteran’s Day Parade in Lynchburg since World War II. The parade is hosted by the Lynchburg Area Veterans Council and will start at Green Hall 9 a.m. and snake down University Boulevard, ending at the Residential Commons.

 

Military Affairs is also hosting a Military Tailgate open to the public before the Liberty Flames football kicks off against Presbyterian College at 3:30 p.m. The tailgate will be in the Lower LaHaye Parking Lot.

 

The Flames game against Presbyterian College will honor United States servicemen and women around the world in a special halftime show as well as announce the recipient of the George Rogers Champion of Freedom Award.

 

The full schedule of events is posted on the Liberty University Military Affairs website. Students are encouraged to interact with the festivities to help commemorate and honor fallen soldiers of the United States.