Veterans Day is a federally recognised holiday held on November 11 to celebrate all who served and do serve in the United States Military.
At Georgia Highlands, there are several veterans who are now serving as students and faculty. Two such students are Christopher Farrell, Air Force Radar Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge, and Melvin Irvin, Army airborne infantry. Among the veteran faculty is Professor Scott Akemon, Army infantry.
Irvin served in Bravo IP, an airborne infantry division, and trained at Fort Benning. As opposed to front-line infantry, his role in the upcoming years would be to drop behind enemy lines and do as much damage as possible.
In his three weeks of training for that position, he spent his time in physical training, learning about his role and about parachutes, and preparing to jump from an aircraft.
The last week of his train- ing was spent doing these jumps, the majority of which were during the day. On any given jump, there was a cord attached to him that automatically deployed the parachute a few seconds after going air- borne. He then descended at 20 mph.
Irvin served two tours in Afghanistan, starting at 18 years old. He saw combat on his first tour and encountered 42 improvised explosive devices. His second tour was relatively more relaxed, save for the firefight down the street he was patrolling.
Photo by Nathaniel Flahardy
