St. John’s University will hold its annual Veterans Day ceremony in Jamaica on Thursday for vets dating as far back as the Korean War to honor those who have risked their lives to protect our country and educate its students on the importance of the day.
The ceremony will be held on Nov. 8 at the school’s D’Angelo Center at 8000 Utopia Parkway in room 416, according to Paul Lazauskas, a spokesman for the school.
Elected officials, community leaders, 500 student veterans and members of the school’s ROTC are expected to attend the event, which will start at 1:30 p.m., according to Lazauskas.
Opening up the ceremony is the school’s ROTC battalion who will present the color guards, according to Lazauskas. Pop singer Theresa Sareo will also perform.
“She does a lot of military tributes,” said Lazauskas. “She is an amputee herself after getting hit by a car and she has dedicated her life to reaching out to veterans and connecting with them and their backgrounds.”
Joseph Sciame, the vice president for Community Relations, will serve as master of ceremonies, and the keynote speaker is Captain Carlo Wei of the SJU Red Storm ROTC Battalion, according to Lazauskas. A luncheon will follow the speech.
Wei enlisted into the U.S. Army Reserve as a private first class in 2003, working as an intelligence analyst while he attended the University of California in Santa Cruz full time. He spent nine years as an enlisted soldier reaching the rank of Sergeant First Class before direct commissioning as a Military Intelligence officer, according to Lazauskas.
He later earned a master’s degree in public administration at Golden Gate University in California and served overseas assignments to South Korea and Iraq, according to the spokesman.
He put his civilian career on hold at the city of Half Moon Bay in California for three years to take an assignment as an executive officer and ROTC instructor at the Red Storm Battalion. Wei has 15 years total of service with three spent at St. John’s ROTC to help mentor the next generation of Army officers.
