Dates

• Usage: 2000 - 2004
• Usage: 2005 - 2009
• Usage: 2011-present

Biography

In October 1870,Robert Fulton, SJ, organized students as the Foster Cadets and made drill compulsory. Drill became optional in 1884 and ended soon after. In World War I, more than 540 Boston College students and alumni served in the armed forces. In fall 1918, the college trained 761 soldiers in the Students’ Army Training Corps. A voluntary ROTC unit followed in March 1919 with 137 students but was discontinued that September.

In World War II, 17 Jesuit faculty members served as military chaplains. From July 1943 to spring 1944, the college housed 432 Army Specialized Training Program soldiers in St. Mary’s Hall. After the war, enrollment rose under the GI Bill. Undergraduate enrollment was 453 in September 1945. By March 1946, 546 of the 1,067 students in Arts and Sciences were veterans, and by September 1947, Arts and Sciences and Business Administration together enrolled 4,572 students. In 1947, the War Department also approved an Army ROTC Field Artillery Unit. About 90% of Boston College Law School students in 1949 were veterans, and the ROTC unit had 860 cadets by 1951.

On October 5, 1970, W. Seavey Joyce, SJ, notified the Army that Boston College would not renew its ROTC contract. A 1984 cross-enrollment agreement with Northeastern University restored Army ROTC. Air Force and Navy ROTC are offered through Boston University. Since 2008, Boston College has taken part in the Yellow Ribbon Program. In 2021 it expanded that funding for BC Law and the full-time MBA program.

Before 2009, Boston College’s only war memorials were a Gasson 100 plaque listing World War II dead and a flagpole plaque on the Campus Green. In 2001, Charles A. Benedict, Class of 1967 and 1970, and Mary-Anne Benedict, Class of 1967, co-founded a committee with the Alumni Association and Army ROTC, with early support from the William McInnes, SJ, Its chair was Charles J. Heffernan Jr., Class of 1966. That year the committee held the first annual Veterans Remembrance Mass and Ceremony and began its roll call. After the names of alumni who died in each war are read, ROTC cadets ask, “Who will stand and answer for the fallen?” A veteran steps forward, answers, “I will answer for all those who gave their lives,” and lights a candle.

In 2005, the Alumni Association formed a Veterans Memorial Committee, co-chaired by Delaney and Paul L. Lufkin, Class of 1964, both Vietnam veterans. Beginning in fall 2007, the committee sought to raise about $500,000 without drawing on other university priorities or donors. On November 11, 2009, about 850 people attended the memorial’s dedication at the north end of the Burns Library Lawn. The 70-foot serpentine granite wall bore 209 names, from World War I through Afghanistan. Two names have since been added, most recently Army 1st Lt. Thomas Redgate in 2021, a former student missing in action since the Korean War.

In 2011, the memorial committee became the Boston College Veterans Alumni Network (BCVAN), with Delaney as founding chair. Under co-chairs Dan Arkins, Class of 1981, and George Harrington, Class of 1980, BCVAN expanded from remembrance to helping veterans move to civilian life, adding networking events and speakers. It sponsors the annual Mass and ceremony with the Alumni Association, Army ROTC, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Campus Ministry.

Three campus groups now serve the veteran community alongside BCVAN. A veterans affinity group for faculty and staff began in 2016, when about 80 employees identified themselves as veterans. In 2017, graduate student veterans, including Lisa Smith of the Graduate School of Social Work, co-founded the BC Student Veterans Association. The Boston College Veterans’ Advisory Group, created in 2018, reports through the vice president for human resources and advises university leadership on veterans’ issues. Military and Veteran Support coordinates services.

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