UTampa student and Navy veteran Peter Kieffer '27, right, and ROTC Cadet Dermot Gilabert cut the Veterans Day cake in a traditional military ceremony. Photo by Cameron Soltis
The University honored Veterans Day and its veterans on Wednesday with a luncheon on campus, featuring the national anthem performed by student musicians and remarks from student and retired sailor Peter Kieffer ’27, a Tampa native and communications and philosophy major.
There are 160 students and 50 veteran staff and faculty on campus who have served in the military, said Bridgette Shipley, a retired Marine and Coordinator of Veteran Student Services. When including campus members who have served in the U.S. Reserves and National Guard, the number rises to nearly 600 members of the UTampa community who are military-connected, she said.
“We are incredibly proud of the contributions this community makes to our University,” Shipley said. “They bring leadership, resilience, adaptability, teamwork and a commitment to serving others. They bring experiences and perspectives that extend beyond the classroom and workplace.”
Kieffer, who retired from the Navy after six years as a hospital corpsman, centered his remarks on the people who served with and around him. Navy hospital corpsmen are enlisted medical providers who support other branches of the military. Kieffer provided medical services to the Marines throughout his career.
“To me, one of the remarkable things about military service is that it brings together people who would not have otherwise crossed paths,” he said. “You learn that service is about something far greater than ourselves, and we become part of a team.”
Kieffer began his military career in the Navy when he enlisted out of Plant High School at 16. He became a medic attached to the Marines and was stationed with Second Reconnaissance Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He later became a field/combat medic on helicopter-based search and rescue out of the Sierra Nevadas in California.
Bonds are built over a commitment to the people you serve alongside, rather than a commitment to an ideology or a certain leader, he said.
“It’s not a bond forged because we are all alike but because despite our differences, we look out for one another,” he said.
After he left the military, Kieffer knew he wanted to come to UTampa and now does research on campus and at other universities studying the veteran experience.
Being a student veteran means moving from one of the most rigid, uniform institutions there is into an environment with little structure. In the military, individuality takes a back seat, and the team comes first. In college, he said, students must chart their own course, and the sense of a cohesive team disappears. Kieffer’s hope is for other veterans is to adjust to that shift without losing sight of who they are: they did specific things, and they shouldn’t let go of where they came from.
In an interview last month, Kieffer noted that the typical veteran looks nothing like the typical college student. Veteran students are usually in their late twenties, married with kids, living in their own homes off campus, and already carrying a full life outside school.
But, Kieffer said, “If you lean into it just a little bit more, you will find the community (in college) that you are looking for.”
Wednesday’s event included a traditional cake-cutting ceremony, historically a Marine Corps birthday tradition, that symbolizes the history and readiness for service passing from one generation to the next. Service members use a long, arched Mameluke sword to cut the cake. Kieffer cut the cake with Cadet Dermot Gilabert ’30, a finance major who is in his first year in Spartan Battalion training for military service.
“Having one of our veteran students stand alongside one of our future military officers represents that connection. It is an opportunity to sign the relationship between those two, who have already served and those who are preparing to serve, while honoring the continued legacy of military service,” Shipley said.
Interim UTampa President Harris Pastides capped off the event by reminding everyone that as they honor those who’ve served, they shouldn’t forget the work that still needs to be done to support veterans.
“There's a lot of work that our country still has to do to help, not just on Veterans Day, but on every day,” Pastides said. “Remember to be red, white and blue every single day.”
