The Mizzou Student Veterans Association will host its first-ever Patriot Day BBQ on Tuesday to connect veterans with MU students and families involved with the military.
Members from branches of MU’s ROTC program will be in attendance, and MU military faculty, staff and student veterans are also encouraged to attend. More than 300 people are expected to attend the event, MU spokesman Christian Basi said.
MU Chancellor Brady Deaton and Mizzou Student Veterans Association President Trista Corbin will speak at the event, which will also have an open house for MU’s new ROTC buildings.
“One of the things that has always been at the forefront of the chancellor’s and the university’s priorities is to make our student veterans and our veterans from the faculty and staff on campus feel welcome,” Basi said.
MU’s event will be held on Patriot Day. President George W. Bush established the holiday in September 2002 as a day reserved for honor and remembrance of those who perished in the Sept. 11 attacks. This Patriot Day marks the 10-year anniversary of the first Patriot Day and the 11-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Brady and Anne Deaton were inspired to hold the event after attending last year’s rededication of the American War Mother’s memorial, an 81-year-old monument located east of Memorial Union, Anne Deaton said.
“The chancellor and I couldn’t be more excited to honor the Mizzou faculty and staff and students who have served this country and our veterans,” Anne Deaton said.
There will also be birds of prey on display provided by the College of Veterinary Medicine. This is part of the Raptor Rehabilitation Project and will take place in the courtyard. The front lawn will have information about the Veterans and Shelter Dog Initiative, which is conducting a study called “Veterans and Shelter Dogs.” This program takes Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and pairs them with shelter dogs, to which they teach basic obedience.
“In so doing this, they get a meaningful activity that is relaxing with other veterans, and also helping to stabilize those animals,” said Rebecca Johnson, director of the Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction.
The group has been conducting these experiments since 2005 and will continue to do further research to help both dogs and veterans.
“When you put both animals and people together in creative ways, both can benefit, specifically dogs,” Johnson said.
Others in attendance will be firefighters from the Columbia Fire Department and Truman the Tiger. Hot dogs, hamburgers and an assortment of beverages and desserts will be on the menu.
Though this is a celebration for veterans and current students involved in the military, Anne Deaton said this should not be a once-in-a-while celebration — it should be a daily one.
“Even though this is not opened up to the entire campus, the thanks of the campus can embrace the veterans that are there,” Deaton said.
The event will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the north end of Francis Quadrangle.
