This was a good day for Mike and Molly Morel. Any day that their son, Brent, is remembered, is a good day for the Morels. USMC Captain Brent Morel (Martin ’99) died in combat on April 7, 2004, near the city of Fallujah while attacking an insurgent position in Iraq. For those who knew him, his heroic actions spoke volumes about a life lived in service to others and to his country.
Burwell Bell is the second-highest-ranking four-star general in the U.S. Army. He is the U.S. military leader in Korea, charged with maintaining relations with South Korea and monitoring the hornets’ nest of North Korea. But when Bell came to the University of Tennessee to speak, he was--for a time--just “B.B.,” a friend, relative, and diehard Vols fan.
Despite overwhelming odds, Jim Hammond is hopeful that the hundreds of cadets he has trained to be Iraqi police officers will make a difference in Iraq’s transition to democracy. Hammond, a UT Chattanooga alumnus, urges the cadets to put aside political and ethnic differences. He believes, as his cadets do, that together they can help create better lives for everyone in a country ripped apart by violence.
“There’s no front line in Iraq. Everywhere we stayed was the front line,” said Dr. Joan Sullivan, a member of the National Guard, describing her 2005 tour of duty. As a surgeon for the 42nd Infantry Division, the 1987 graduate of the UT Health Science Center was deployed to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. The division’s deployment marked the first time a National Guard unit had been sent into combat since the Korean War.
Page 1 of 1 pages
