WSCC Veterans Day activites

VICTORY TWP. — West Shore Community College’s Veterans Club will hold several events on Monday, Nov. 11 in honor of Veterans Day. The club will have a table and podium set up in the atrium of Beans & Bread Cafe in the Schoenherr Campus Center. Many student veterans will be speaking about their experiences in the military. Additionally, Air National Guard Sgt (and former USMC Sgt) Nate DeWeerd will be speaking via Skype. DeWeerd is on his second deployment in the Middle East. The events in the Schoenherr Center atrium will begin at 11 am.

The club will be screening a discussion with veteran storytellers as they share their journeys from combat to classrooms to civilian careers from the Got Your 6 website. This Storytellers event highlights military veterans who are now making an impact in the civilian world. These individuals will each offer a significant level of depth and clarity on topics as diverse as education, public policy, technology, international development, disaster relief, renewable energy, and business leadership. Got Your 6 is a campaign that unites the entertainment industry with top veteran-focused nonprofit organizations. The goal of the campaign is to bridge the civilian-military divide by creating a new conversation in America, so that veterans and military families are perceived as leaders and civic assets.

At 2 pm, the Emmy-winning documentary film about student veterans from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, “Where Soldiers Come From,” will be shown in the Arts & Sciences Building, Rm 364. The film is free and open to the public. The film is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars and the families and town they come from. Returning to her Michigan hometown, director Heather Courtney gains extraordinary access following these young men as they grow and change from teenagers stuck in their town, to National Guard soldiers looking for roadside bombs in Afghanistan, to 23-year-old veterans dealing with the silent war wounds of traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress syndrome. It premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the best documentary editing award. In 2012 the film won a news and documentary Emmy Award for outstanding continuing coverage of a news story, as well as the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award. It also has won Best Film Awards in Indie Spirit Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, and in our own Traverse City Film Festival.