CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Army News Service, Nov. 11, 2009) -- Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. helped unveil a plaque of Harvard Medal of Honor recipients during a Veterans Day observance at the university, then visited the gravesite of recent Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti.
Casey visited Harvard University Nov. 11 to speak with military Senior Service College students. He also met with Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust and spoke at the university's Veterans Day ceremony.
"How lucky we are as a country to have those who not only believe in the values and ideals this country stands for, but are also willing to fight for them," Casey said at the Harvard University service.
Then he and Faust unveiled a stone plaque with the names of 16 Harvard alumni who were Medal of Honor recipients, spanning a period from the Civil War to the Vietnam War.
While at Harvard, Casey stopped to look at a plaque in the university's Memorial Church of alumni that gave their lives in the Vietnam War. The name of Casey's father, Maj. Gen. George William Casey Sr., is the first name on the plaque.
Casey met with military students attending a program at Harvard that provides them an opportunity to gain perspectives on public policy and management through interaction across agency and executive-legislative branch boundaries and at the university's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Then the general took part in another Veterans Day ceremony at Buzzards Bay, Mass., and spoke with the parents of Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti.
Monti was killed in action in Afghanistan on June 21, 2006, while trying for the third time to rescue a wounded fellow Soldier. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor Sept. 17, 2009, in a White House ceremony.
During the Veterans Day reception at Buzzards Bay, a shadow box displayed some of the medals and badges awarded to Monti. Casey helped Monti's father explain the awards to his family and friends.
Then he and Paul Monti visited the gravesite of Sgt. 1st Class Monti at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, Mass.
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