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When UNA alumnus Robert Jackson was commissioned as an officer at

the Memorial Amphitheatre in 1963, he didn’t anticipate the lessons

he would learn through his three combat tours in Vietnam and

Dominican Republic or what impact he would ultimately have on the

U.S. military.

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Jackson, who spoke at the ROTC Veterans Day Program Nov. 11, which

honored 1,105 commissioned cadets at UNA since 1950, encouraged

veterans to share their stories of war in order to help others and

themselves.

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“After 25 years of combat, I didn’t talk about my experiences

except with close friends and family,” Jackson said. “But you owe

it to yourself and other people to share your stories. It was very

therapeutic for me and changed me internally.”

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Jackson was featured in Walter Cronkite’s Emmy-award winning 1970

CBS documentary “The World of Charlie Company” and later in the

1978 follow-up documentary “Charlie Company at Home.”  The first

film, which shed light on how fighting in the jungles of Southeast

Asia impacted Jackson and other soldiers, was shown in the GUC

Performance Center shortly after the ROTC program and luncheon.

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The celebration, which took place at the Memorial Amphitheatre,

brought hundreds of UNA graduates, war veterans, commissioning

cadets, and family and friends of soldiers to the program.

Reflecting on his own leadership experience in the military,

Jackson reached out to young cadets about what it takes to be a

successful leader.

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“You have to know your job, know your code and know your people,”

he said. “You need to be an expert in your field and be the go-to

person who does things best and who people come to. You need to

know your code, which is another way of saying you need to know

yourself. You have to know your people and their strengths and

weaknesses. You have to give yourself up, do the hard work and make

the difficult decisions.”

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President William Cale also spoke at the ROTC program, outlining

UNA’s military history. He said 288 soldiers who studied at UNA

served in World War I, leaving six dead. After the Memorial

Amphitheatre was built in 1936, 15 of 318 UNA soldiers died in

World War II. When soldiers returned to college on the G.I. Bill,

17 officers were commissioned for the first time on UNA’s campus in

1950. 

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Cale quoted the famous words by American politician Zell Miller at

the program last Thursday.

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“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom

of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us

freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has

given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the

flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag,

who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag,”

he said.

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For Jackson, the Veterans Day celebration at UNA signified a shift

in attitudes toward military service across the nation. 

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“I’ve grown to appreciate Veterans Day more,” Jackson said in a

private interview before the ROTC program. “When I came back from

Vietnam to Los Angeles, there was a low appreciation for the

military, but I’ve begun to see more and more of an appreciation

over the years, as I’ve seen my son and what he sacrificed in

combat, the close friends we lost in the war and the people who

risk their lives to serve and do their part.”