Northwestern honored Sarah Sherwood, McCormick ’01, on three different days last week, but she placed one occasion on a grander scale.
“This is the biggest day of our lives, next to marriage or having kids. It’s that important,” she said.
She isn’t talking about hearing her class graduate at Friday’s commencement and the big day wasn’t Saturday when she received her diploma. For Sherwood and 12 others in her battalion, Thursday’s commissioning ceremony, the event where she was promoted from midshipman to an officer in the United States Navy, was last week’s greatest honor.
For Sherwood and 12 others in her battalion, last Thursday’s commissioning ceremony, where they were promoted from midshipmen to officers in the United States Navy and Marines, was last week’s greatest honor.
Before sociology Prof. Charles Moskos talked about war to an overheated audience of Weinberg seniors in Welsh-Ryan Arena on Saturday, a few proud students strode across the stage of Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and were addressed for the first time as officers in the Navy and Marines. After the commissioning, the new officers delivered an honorary first salute to their former instructors, now their fellow officers.
In a brief ceremony attended by about 300 friends and family members of the 13 graduating members of NU’s Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps battalion, commanding officers and visiting speakers told the students about the importance of their commitment and its impact on the country’s future.
The message was reiterated for those Weinberg seniors in the battalion, who were called “the next great generation” by Moskos in Saturday’s convocation address, drawing parallels to those who fought in World War II.
Speakers told the graduating class that their commitment would mean as much to the graduates as it would to their country. Capt. Jeffrey Keho said that the changing conditions of warfare demand a stronger class of officers.
“The best big weapon system is nothing without well-trained and well-motivated people,” Keho said.
John Margolis, associate provost for faculty affairs and president of the Association of NROTC Colleges, told the officers that “few of your classmates can look forward to a career as rewarding as yours. You will have the kinds of responsibilities that your classmates will encounter only many years later, if ever.”
Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran and retired Marine, addressed the battalion with words of hope and yearning.
“I wish I were in your shoes today, ” he said. “Would I do it all again? You bet. You bet.”
And although the songs, uniforms and marches made the occasion formal, help from parents and friends to commission the midshipmen lent a more personal touch to the evening.
Col. William Marcantel Sr., stood on stage with his son, William Jr., Weinberg ’01, and read him a commissioning oath, exhorting him to “support and defend of the Constitution of the United States.” Fathers, uncles and commanding officers recited the oath for the other seniors, and then friends and family members dressed the now-ensigns in uniform.
The moment left Marcantel Jr. speechless. “I can’t put into words the sentimental value of it,” he said. Lt. Col. Richard Sutherland agreed, saying the feeling of commissioning his daughter, Erika Sutherland, into the Navy was “beyond words.”
The newly commissioned officers spoke excitedly of their terms of service following the ceremony. Most of the graduates agree that they were more satisfied by the sounds of their service hymns than any rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.”
Margolis kept his remarks to the midshipmen simple and academic.
“It’s called military service,” he said. “The second word is the noun. The first is important, but is only a modifying adjective.”
Marcantel Jr. agreed.
“They say they are looking for an intellectual officer,” he said. “And while academics come first, and officer is what I always wanted to be.”
