Many factors might motivate a person to enlist in the military, says Yale senior Keith Buckholz. For some, it's a patriotic calling, for others, it's a road to employment, for others still it's a chance to jumpstart adult life.
Most who serve will have no control over the role they'll be asked to play, or where their mission will take them. But the vast majority, Buckholz told an audience at Yale's annual Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday, harbor a fundamental hope that they'll do good in the world.
"In many ways, the motivations of service members are not all that different from motivations of every citizen in America," he said. "We all hope to do good in the world."
Buckholz, who enrolled as a Yale undergraduate after serving five years as an aviation mechanic in the U.S. Marine Corps, felt great pride, for instance, when he learned the H-1 helicopters he helped maintain at Camp Pendleton in Southern California were being used to help victims of hurricanes on the other side of the country.
In the years since Buckholz left active service, he's noticed just how many veterans continue to serve others after their years in the military come to an end. They might take jobs at nonprofit organizations or in municipal offices across the United States. Others - including the more than 200 veterans currently enrolled as undergraduate or graduate students at Yale - trade their military uniforms for academic life.
"Here at Yale University, veterans end up studying to be nurses and doctors, public defenders and prosecutors, mathematicians and scientists," Buckholz, who is studying astrophysics as a part of Yale's Eli Whitney Students Program, said in formal remarks during the Beinecke Plaza ceremony. "We have complete control over our lives, and all the freedoms afforded by American life. They choose to do work that does good in the world."
