ELKHART — An Iraq War veteran spoke about his time in the U.S. Army to students at Pinewood Elementary School Thursday.
“I just really think about the other people I served with and about the good and bad times,” veteran Travis Linn of Elkhart said by telephone Thursday afternoon. “Being in the military really shaped me into the man I am today.”
Linn, 33, served in the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and served a tour in Iraq in 2009. His Iraq tour started at Salman Pak, which is on the outskirts of Baghdad, and ended at a location closer to the Euphrates River. He served as a airborne infantry team leader, and his term of service ended in 2011.
Linn and other veterans spoke at Pinewood in honor of Veterans Day, which is Saturday. In November of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day.
“World War I — known at the time as “The Great War” — officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France,” according to the U.S Dept. of Veterans Affairs website.
“However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, Nov. 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of ‘the war to end all wars.’”
Veterans Day continues to be observed Nov. 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls.
“My uncle was a Vietnam veteran, and Vietnam veterans got treated a lot differently than veterans in this day and age,” Linn said.
Linn described his as a “unique situation.” Specifically, he and his brother, Ryan, who is two years older, went through basic training together, with Ryan going on to serve in Afghanistan.
“Our mom had her two youngest boys deployed at the same time,” he said.
With Veterans Day this weekend, Linn said that he is a proponent of providing services for veterans in the areas of mental health, treatment for drug addiction and alcoholism and other areas, at least making them aware of options that are available for them. He also would like to see efforts made to help veterans develop a renewed sense of purpose, in job training and other areas.
“That sense of purpose that veterans have when they put on the uniform is something they miss when they get out,” he added.
A freight broker by trade, working from home, Linn also recently became a certified personal trainer. He is engaged and has three children, Nolan, 14, Khloe, 12, Kennedy, 7, and a stepson, Braxton, 11.
Source: The Goshen News