THE BLUE RAIDER SPIRIT OF SERVICE

A Tradition of Service

MTSU students, faculty, staff, and alumni have served our country with great distinction all over the globe.  MTSU alumni have risen to the general officer ranks, have been awarded honors as high as the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross, or served in historic units such as the famed Black Sheep Squadron of WWII, the Marine Raider Battalions, the 101st Airborne’s Screaming Eagles, or the 1st Air Cavalry.  One MTSU WWII pilot even named his P-38 Lightning aircraft, the "Blue Raider" (Ironic isn't it that the aircraft type's nickname was "Lightning," the name of our university mascot). This tradition of service to the campus, community, and country began shortly after the university opened in 1911. Approximately 230 students from Middle Tennessee State Normal School, or "Normalites," served in uniform during the Great War.  During World War I, a Student Army Training Corps and a Machine Gun Regiment formed from the university’s student body. During the last century, countless numbers of MTSU students have trained as aviators in our renowned aerospace program and have flown combat missions all over the globe, while others have served aboard ship or on the ground in the infantry. Many other students also served in civilian roles with the Red Cross or with the Oak Ridge Laboratories. Even today, this Blue Raider Spirit of Service continues to make a vital contribution to U.S. national security.

Honoring MTSU’s Fallen

The university’s service flag presently contains fifty-five gold stars, and it is humbling to discover more about those among this group who have given their lives for their country. At least five MTSU alumni died during WWI, including the author of the first alma mater, W.J. McConnell.  MTSU alumni were also some of the first to give their lives in WWII just after Pearl Harbor in defense of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Throughout the World War II, MTSU students served and fell in the Pacific Islands, Italy, North Africa, Western Europe (including D-Day), Eastern Europe, and the China-India-Burma theater.  Two died on Iwo Jima, one during the pre-invasion reconnaissance as a member of an Underwater Demolitions Team (predecessors to today's Navy SEALs), and another while trying to fend off Japanese attackers.  During Vietnam, nearly half of the MTSU casualties, died while trying to assist others during rescue or close air support missions.

Memorials to MTSU’s veterans began in World War I as a service flag and gold star flag flew in the old auditorium.  As KIAs were reported to the campus, blue stars on the service became gold stars and moved to the appropriate banner. During the World War II years, another service flag, this time containing approx. 800 stars, again hung in the campus auditorium. Later, to remember those in the MTSU community who have served our country, friends and family planted trees and named roads to honor our veterans, but the largest memorial, the Alumni Memorial Gym (1950), honors nearly forty MTSU students killed in World War II and contains a plaque with their names. The MTSU ROTC detachment, established in 1953, have dedicated a memorial library and maintain other small memorials in and around Forrest Hall to honor those from the program who have fallen.

The MTSU Veterans Memorial

To honor all of MTSU’s veterans in a single monument and increase awareness among the campus community of this institution’s nearly a century’s worth of service, a committee of faculty, staff, and alumni launched a campaign to construct the MTSU Veterans Memorial. This project seeks to preserve the memory of MTSU’s tradition of military service, build a physical monument to honor their contribution to our country, and inspire a spirit of service to future generations of “Blue Raiders.” Since beginning this project in the Fall of 2004, we have begun to chronicle MTSU’s wartime experiences. A website acts as a virtual memorial and MTSU is continuing to compile a database of veterans as well as student’s wartime remembrances with assistance from the Gore Center, the records office, history books, newspapers, citizen responses, and veterans’/alumni interviews. A physical monument for campus is currently in the fund-raising and design phase. If you would like more information, have information you would like to add, or would like to contribute financially to the project, please contact Derek Frisby in the MTSU History Department.