In celebration of Veterans Day and honoring the United States military, Bloomsburg University hosted Veteran’s week with a list of events to educate students about existing veterans. The week of awareness was put together by multiple organizations including the BU Student Association, Zeigler College Center, The University Book Store, Program Board, Academic Advisement, College of Liberal Arts, Army National Guard, American Legion, ROTC, Army Reserves, Academic Achievement, Marketing Communications and more.

     “We want to celebrate our veterans and share the tradition, history and story with non-military members to show that there’s a lot that goes on with them,” said Robert Heckrote, Office of Military and Veteran Resources Coordinator.

     “We had about 20-25 members in uniform that are taking classes here on campus and many did not know that they were in the military until they put their uniform on.”

     The Black Hawk helicopter was the main event from Veteran’s week on Thursday November 9th. The landing took place at 7:45 a.m. on the Academic Quad and hundreds of students circled around the quad later that afternoon to take a look at the helicopter.

     “Our turnout was excellent, said Heckrote, “About 1,000 students stood in the rain to watch the helicopter land. The exposure that the campus received was amazing especially in short notice. The participation was excellent and we are so pleased. I received so many emails of appreciation for last week. We want to thank the leadership on campus for believing in us in what we do and giving us a chance.”

     Steven Beisner, Recruiter at Pennsylvania Army National Guard was the one who coordinated the Black Hawk landing and it took a lot for it to be approved by both the university and the Army National Guard.

     “Proper documentation needed to be signed from the highest authority on both sides,” said Heckrote, “The helicopter landing was close to not happening because of the fog. The more risk factors there are, the less likely for it to fly because this was for an event. The helicopter circled about three or four times to find the quad and it had to take off early because the weather was bad.”

     Other events that was included that week was guest speaker Mike Medvec, BUSVA’s first president, the Veteran Suicide Awareness Walk and Veterans Appreciation Posters.

     Raul Santana, BUSVA President is determined and hopeful that Veteran’s Week will continue in the future.

     “We want to make this a tradition. Also, we wanted to touch on suicide awareness and all the mental health issues that are out there. Our message is that we want to show people that we care,”said Santana,

     “We came a long way, a couple years ago we didn’t have the ability to have this happen so we are really grateful and we can only go up from here.”