Veterans Day 2010, which will be celebrated this Thursday, November 11, has especially personal significance for two Cathedral Catholic teachers who served in the United States armed forces.
For twenty four years, from 1984 to 2008, campus chaplain and scripture teacher Father Brian Kelly served as a U.S. Navy Chaplain, providing ministerial service to members of the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. He also served soldiers and air men and women when he was deployed to certain “joint operations.” It was after being approached by a priest recruiter who told him about the critical shortage of Catholic priests to serve Navy members that Fr. Kelly decided to help.
He said, “I can recall with a grateful heart the men and women I met while serving in the Navy and the opportunity it gave me to minister to them and their families.”
Veterans Day is important, Fr. Kelly said, because, not only does it recognize the original ending of World War I, but today it also honors all the men and women who have served in the United States Armed Services.
“Many students have parents who have served or are serving in our military
today. We have faculty and staff who have served or are reservists in our military. CCHS students come to a beautiful campus to be challenged intellectually, spiritually, and physically; this opportunity is given to them because of the protection provided by present and past members of the Armed Services,” he said.
Fr. Kelly said Americans can commemorate Veterans Day by, “…pausing in prayer and thanking verbally those men and women who have served our nation faithfully, and continuing to lift up in prayer the men and women who ‘stand the watch’ for our nation.”
Ceramics teacher Mr. Stephen Altamirano served as a sergeant 72F40 communications trick chief in the U.S. Army from 1968-1970. He decided to serve in the military because he believes in the American system of government. He said, “We just had big elections last Tuesday. And did the army roll into the streets because Meg Whitman didn’t win? Did anything happen, did anybody shoot other people? No. We have freedom and it is very important.”
Mr. Altamirano worked in the top secret area of an Army communications center. One of his most important memories from his time of service is that, due to a critical transmission error, he knew about the American invasion of Cambodia before it occurred. He said, “Messages have categories – priority, unclassified, classified, secret, top secret. Then, there is a top secret top secret. This one came in differently…I had to look it up. It was meant for the eyes of about five people in the world. And they weren’t my eyes.”
To Mr. Altamirano, Veterans Day is an accumulation of sacrifices of the men and women that have worked to preserve liberties which tend to be taken for granted.
He said, “I have a friend that had surgery and is in the naval hospital. Yesterday I saw a veteran in a wheelchair missing one leg. He was young, about twenty five years old. It makes you take a deep breath and think about those people.”
His advice to Cathedral students, based upon what he learned during his military service is, “Always be true to your beliefs because what you believe is important. Hold that dear to your heart. You can change your beliefs as you experience life, but those things that your parents taught you are the core values that you must never forget.”