On Thursday, November 10, at 11:11 am, a ceremony/flag raising took place at South Seattle Community College to recognize Veterans Day. Throughout the day, the campus screens feature a slideshow of South veterans and their family members who served. No classes are held November 11, but campus offices remain open and staffed.

Nearly 200 student veterans reflect and add to the rich diversity of South’s student body. They come from all over the world, represent every branch of the military and, while they share some strong common bonds as veterans, all are following their individual paths to academic and career success.

"This is a special day, not only to remember friends who we lost, but friends who we are waiting for to come home," Ryan Shannon told the West Seattle Herald before saying some poignant words to about 15 people gathered around the flagpole. He is a student at South, and president of the Veterans Club. We did two recent articles on Ryan Shannon here and here.

"I'm waiting for my best friend to come home, Daniel Cazasta, who is in Afghanistan," Shannon added. "I also think my friends I have lost. This is a special day. The reason our nation is so powerful and successful is because we have citizens who volunteer to stand up and go take care of our nation's interests instead of just sitting back and talking politics."

SSCC President Gary Oertli said some words, assuring the vets present that the school is vet friendly. Delores Taylor asked that those gathered say the Pledge of Allegiance.

David Diltz, 26, who attended the ceremony, came home from serving in February. The Texan considers himself politically a "moderate extremist" although he said he highly respects President Obama's war strategy including his efforts to choke the Taliban's drug profits which Diltz said is the core of their funding. He is a 4.0 student at SSCC, works on campus assisting Delores Taylor certifying veteran students' G.I. Bills and participates in the new veterans club on campus.

"I did combat operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, and Thailand," Diltz told the West Seattle Herald. "In the Philippines, we fought the terrorist training cells, Abu Sayyaf, and MILF, (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) to terrorist training cells. and worked in Afghanistan in an effort to fight drug trafficking. Seventy-three percent of the world's opium supply comes out of Afghanistan. That's a brilliant strategy Obama has and is more effective than attacking infrastructure there."