Iowa veterans arrived to a warm welcome at Iowa State on Monday for the annual Iowa Statewide Veterans Conference.

Veterans and their families met in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union for a conference that revolved around the idea of learning to return services and thanks to Iowa’s veterans.

“I want everybody to truly understand and know that we owe [veterans] a sincere debt of gratitude, them and their families,” Tom Hill, senior vice president for student affairs, said before the keynote address by Maj. Gen. Timothy Orr.

Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony began with a moment of silence led by Jathan Chicoine, veteran’s affairs coordinator, and a presentation by the ROTC Tri-Color guard.

Hill, a veteran himself, preluded Orr as he explained the importance of taking care of your people. Hill told a story about a time in the Army when he learned a lesson that has followed him throughout his entire career.

“I was the platoon leader and we were out in the field and we broke for lunch,” Hill said. “I thought, as any young second lieutenant would think, ‘I’m in charge.’ When the food truck came, I thought, ‘Hmm, I’m gonna be the first one to eat.’”

Hill was sadly mistaken, however, when his superior pulled him over to talk.

“He said, ‘after the soldiers eat, if there’s something left, you and I might get a chance to eat,” Hill said. “Throughout my professional career, that has been something I have leaned on the whole time. You take care of your people first.”

Jonathan Wickert, ISU senior vice president and provost, also gave a speech.

Wickert discussed talents that veterans bring to campus and meeting the responsibility to veterans in new ways.

“How do we best meet our responsibility to returning service men and women in the higher education community?” Wickert asked. “I think we have a lot of the right pieces in place, and I’m proud of the collaboration that we have here in our respective organizations. But we can always find ways to improve.

“We need to be cognizant of the special needs of veteran students on our campus, providing them with the opportunities that they need to excel.” 

The keynote speech was then given by Orr.

Keynote Address

Orr jokingly began his speech with how he is usually the one attending the conferences and never the one speaking at them. He said he had written his speech the day before the conference and had to find out what a keynote speaker was from Chicoine.

Orr then asked all the veterans in the room to stand, so their service could be recognized.

“And I will tell you, there is nobody prouder than I am of the men and women who served,” Orr said.

Orr later talked about how he wrote his keynote address. 

“On a more serious note, I spent a little time yesterday doing some research that I thought was very important,” Orr said. “You can’t tell an audience about where we need to go or what we should do collectively as a group of we, without knowing where we came from.”

Orr discussed the problem of history repeating itself.

“I’m not here to tell you anything other than I’m on the team,” Orr said referring to all of the people in support of military veterans.

Walking the audience through a brief history, which began during the era of World War II, Orr discussed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 and compared it to the current day GI Bill.

“It stands as one of the largest pieces of social legislation ever enacted by the United States congress. It intended to stabilize the United States as we transitioned from a country of war to a country also coming out of a depression.”

Orr said it was the efforts of the Congress to enact this law that really enabled the veterans when they came home to help move forward as a nation.

Orr talked about how veterans, despite little faith from naysayers, exceeded in academic life and changed the perspective on how military personnel could fit into the civilian academic lifestyle.

“Most veteran students who arrived at the universities were more emotionally and physically matured than non-veteran peers,” Orr said. “Former GIs participated in organized athletics, wrote for the student newspaper and helped in student leadership positions.”

This history, one that veterans succeeded in and pushed for, helped Orr and others start Home Base Iowa.

Home Base Iowa, an agency that promotes veterans succeeding after military life, is a resource that provides veterans with opportunities in Iowa.

Home Base Iowa “helps veterans and transitioning service members to find positions at Iowa companies, pursue continued education, continue their service through the Guard or Reserves or any combination of those,” according to its website. 

Anne Hogland, Orr’s old high school teacher, gave Orr a plaque commemorating his hard work throughout the years at the end of the speech.

Native American Code Talkers

Cmdr. Don Loudner and a few other panelists discussed their personal perspectives and offered a historical context into the lives and stories of code talkers during a lunch-panel discussion from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Using Native Americans as code talkers, a military tactic used as early as World War I, was an essential part of the military strategy because the enemy was not able to break the codes.

This war tactic was kept secret from the code talkers’ families, friends and the general public until the 1990s.

At least 25 tribal nations were used by the American military to serve as code talkers.

Loudner offered personal stories involving his work with Native American code talkers. He also discussed the importance of the code talks, all the while delivering a light-hearted humor to his speech.

“American Indians are all born warriors. We were warrior’s way back. Hundreds of years before you guys came to our country,” Loudner said. “I always ask a class when I talk to them, ‘How many of you know what this country was called before you called it the United States? Anybody know? The Indians called it ours.’”

Chad Nielsen, a close friend of Loudner’s, was also a member of the panel, along with Michael and Walter John, who were sons of a code talker.

“I just want to say, to all those who served, to all veterans here, I say, thank you,” Michael said.

Other events

People who attended the Veterans Conference had the chance to attend breakout sessions, such as Home Base Iowa, Veterans in Entrepreneurship and Veterans in Agriculture.

The conference also hosted a resource fair that the public and attendees could go to for free. The resource fair had booths set up that included the Des Moines Vet Center, Hero 2 Hired, Operation Engage America and Hope for the Warriors.

“What is so exciting about this year’s conference is that we’ve been so intentional about the breakout sessions,” Chicoine said in a previous interview. “We wanted people to have tangible takeaways from this conference. We want people to challenge everyone to reflect more deeply on this idea of returning services.”

The conference ended with a keynote address by Col. Robert King, executive director for the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs.

A student veteran’s reception hosted by Hill took place after the conference in the Great Hall.