The Student Veteran Organization encourages students to join the group and like their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BallStateSVO where meetings and news announcements are updated regularly.
When Lydia Holliday joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school, her family was surprised.
The Ball State student and secretary of the Student Veteran Organization said they expected her to study, go to school and graduate from college.
“My family is Hispanic and they don’t believe in women serving," Holliday said. "I don’t believe in traditional things, so I broke the stereotype of my home and did what I wanted to do."
In honor of those who served the nation in the past and present and all who have fallen, SVO will host a ceremony on Veterans Day, Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. in the Cardinal Hall Ballroom in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.
SVO is holding the ceremony in hopes of attracting a large crowd of students, community members and veterans, said Travis Stinson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and president of the Student Veteran Organization.
“The ceremony is all about honoring not only the local veterans but every veteran who has served and sacrificed,” Stinson said. “We want to help people remember what Veterans Day is all about.”
For Holliday, Veterans Day is about reminding people that their freedom comes with great sacrifice.
“Freedom does not come free, it doesn’t not come free at all,” Holliday said. “Every day I was in the military, I thought of all the sacrifices that are made every day with how many go in and out and leave their homes to serve our country.”
During that time serving in the Marine Corps for four years, Holliday never got to deploy because she was always working alongside sergeants, captains and lieutenants who looked at her to be the leader of her group.
While she was serving, Holliday got married and had a child in Japan but wasn’t there to be a part of his life as he group up.
“Because I was serving in places like Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand, I missed a whole year of my son growing,” Holliday said. “The sacrifice to be away from him was hard, and going through all I did emotionally broke me. That’s why I decided to get out.”
In addition to missing her son, Holliday said she didn't want her children to have to see or go through the things she did.
In Thailand, Holliday saw the reality of poverty as people ate off of the floor, sold their bodies for meals and children begged for money.
Holliday also worked with the clean up crew in Japan, where she was surrounded by dead bodies and families crying out to the soldiers. But they didn't speak English, so all she could understand from their Japanese was “excuse me” and “help”.
“I don’t ever want my children to be missing me and ever have to see or go through that,” Holliday said.
Once Holliday got out of the military, the transition from serving to being back in the U.S. was emotionally challenging.
“The transition was hard for me because I am a mother, wife and daughter, and I got to see all of that at once,” she said. “It changed me.”
Even though she has not been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — something that one in three veterans are diagnosed with, according to PTSD Foundation of America — Holliday said she still has images from overseas that haunt her.
Holliday takes things one day at a time, but she is always proud to be a veteran.
“I am grateful and thankful that I am alive and here and I don’t take that for granted,” Holliday said. “I want others to know that it does not come free, [veterans] don’t just do it just because. We sacrifice a lot just to get to this point.”
The ceremony on Nov. 11 will focus on honoring both local veterans and veterans all across the country. U.S. Navy veteran Meredith W. Fry with be awarded the Hometown Hero award during the ceremony as well.
Fry enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and served as a Navy Corpsman during WWII. After serving, he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Tri-State, known today as Trine University.
Later, he worked as the department head for the Physical Plant Planning Office at Ball State University. In 1985, he earned his master’s in economics from the university and worked as the superintendent of Planning and Construction until his retirement in 1987.
Even after his retirement, Fry still stays active. He currently belongs to more than 20 professional and military organizations.
Members of SVO sent in nominations to the organizations’ planning committee for the Hometown Hero award, but Anthony Marquez, SVO’s social media coordinator and U.S. Marine veteran, said nothing matched Fry’s resume.
“Not only is he a World War II veteran, but he is also a Ball State Cardinal,” Marquez said. “He has been retired for so many years but he has never stopped and continues to give back.”
Although Fry is one veteran being awarded at the ceremony, Marquez emphasized the importance of giving thanks and honor to all veterans, not only on Veterans Day, but every day.
“As long as I am alive, I will make sure that others around me know that it is because of the veterans that this country has the freedom to be what it is today,” Marquez said.
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