Few can say they serve in the military, risking their lives to protect their rights and country. Fewer still can say four generations of their family were brave enough to take that risk.

Alexander Waigandt, associate professor emeritus in the College of Education, was the third member of his family to serve in the military, after his grandfather in World War I and his father in World War II. As a baby boomer, Waigandt said joining the military was common for men his age.

“The country was on a huge high after World War II, so everyone was patriotic,” Waigandt said. “We grew up thinking we could be Audie Murphy, the hero of World War II, just like my dad grew up thinking about Sergeant York, (who) was in World War I. It was all patriotism and we thought we could be heroes and we played soldier in the backyard with our friends in the neighborhood.”

During a time when the country was split on the war in Vietnam, Waigandt joined the half in support of the war. As a Marine, he completed one tour, getting sent home during his second after receiving his third Purple Heart.

“Most 18-year-olds don’t have the slightest idea (what death is like),” Waigandt said. “They think they’re going to live forever. And so, you go into the military, and you say you want combat. And they stick you in combat, and all of a sudden people are dying. And you go, ‘oh my goodness I didn’t think this would really happen.’ It’s not like the movies.”

In addition to his brushes with death, Waigandt came away from the military learning lessons of friendship and the value of relationships.

“The people I served with I’m still best friends with,” Waigandt said. “They mean as much to me as my family does. But, they’re the type of people that (will) steal your gear from you, but they’ll lay their life on the line for you.”

After serving, Waigandt enrolled at MU. With no plan as to what he would do in college, he turned a military lesson into a way of figuring out what he would major in.

“We used to get food that they called c-rations,” Waigandt said. “They’re disgusting, but you can live on them. I learned that if you’re willing to eat what other people won’t eat, you’ll be well-fed. (When I got to school,) I asked around, ‘what’s the stuff everybody hates?’ and they said, ‘chemistry and statistics.’”

And with that, Waigandt tried his hand at chemistry. With a C at the end of the semester, he turned to statistics.

“My first stats class I think I got a B, and I thought, ‘oh, I must be a statistician,’” he said.

Waigandt graduated from MU with a degree in health education, specializing in health statistics. As a professor, he said he carries his military values of honor and loyalty.

“I think, collectively, we do that,” Waigandt said. “A person comes to school here and their personality morphs into something, as a function of being here for four years. I think it’s (because of) all of us, those of us that are teaching faculty; it’s what we do. We develop people — that’s our product. We make people. We make citizens.”

Waigandt’s daughter is the fourth military generation in the family, having served in the Army. To Waigandt, protecting his country is a family matter and a key part of his family’s history.

“If we go to war tomorrow, we’d stick one of us in there,” Waigandt said. “That’s just the way we are. My parents came here on a boat from Europe. They had nothing when they got there. This country provided them opportunity that they wouldn’t have gotten over there.”