Bringing together active military, student veterans, and community members, Fitchburg State University held its annual Veterans Day ceremony on Tuesday, headlined by decorated Navy veteran Commander Elizabeth "Liz" Tateoka.
Inside Hammond Hall’s Main Lounge, Fitchburg State faculty, staff, and students gathered to honor the patriotism, courage, and sacrifice demonstrated by veterans across the campus, the local community, and the nation.
Commander Tateoka is a United States Navy Reserve Nurse Corps officer and the founder and medical director of White Onyx Medical Weight Loss and Aesthetics in Gardner. Commissioned in 2008, Commander Tateoka has served for over 17 years across active duty and reserve roles, including three overseas deployments: Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan (ER Trauma Nurse in a Shock-Trauma Platoon in support of Operation Enduring Freedom), and Kuwait (Director of Clinical Operations for Operation Inherent Resolve).
A doctorally-prepared Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, she specializes in functional medicine and root-cause health optimization. Commander Tateoka is dedicated to leadership, health education, and service in both her military command and civilian practice.
Tateoka’s theme for her speech centered around the military phrase of, "I have your six" meaning "I'm watching what you can't see. I've got your back."
“Post-COVID, I think there’s really a lot of isolation and loneliness and disconnect,” said Tateoka. “I don’t think people look out for each other like we used to. That’s something that’s a core principle in the military, because if you don’t have someone’s six and you are out in combat, they can be killed.”
Tateoka also said that we all go through things in life that can break us.
“We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can choose what we do with those experiences,” she said. “We can either let them shut us down or we can use them to begin healing and to notice the person next to us quietly struggling. You don’t have to be healed to help someone else. It starts with noticing and listening.”
Tateoka urged veterans to continue learning and to learn to become lifelong learners.
“There’s always time for learning,” she said. “There is no end to learning. Whether it’s in an institution like Fitchburg State University or online continuing education or even learning how to fly a plane or art classes – it doesn’t really matter where the learning comes from – but I feel like our whole lives if we are constantly learning, we can evolve into a better version of ourselves.”
Veterans Day brings on a different meaning to so many, but for Tateoka, she said that she’s proud that she has been able to be a part of serving a greater cause, while also being part of a great community with the veterans who have sacrificed.
“It goes beyond just us as individuals,” said Tateoka. “For many of us, the corp is why we joined and is something bigger to give back in some way. The ability to give back at a greater level, no matter where we’re at and what it represents, is more than just individuals. Veterans Day can be seen as more than just veterans, but also as humans and how much further can we actually expand our influence and take part in more than ourselves individually.”
“Service places individual lives in relationship to public purposes,” said Hodge. “It involves obligations to people we may never meet and consequences that extend far beyond those who make the decisions. In a democracy, those obligations belong to all of us, even though the burdens of military service are borne by relatively few.
“Veterans Day therefore asks something of those of us who haven't served,” said Hodge. “It asks us to consider whether our understanding of citizenship is adequate to the sacrifices we recognize. Gratitude is essential. But gratitude also gives us a responsibility to listen carefully, to understand more fully, and to take seriously the lives veterans are building alongside us.”
Hodge also said that education should expand a person's possibilities.
“A veteran may arrive here intending to build directly on an established field of expertise,” said Hodge. “Another may want to study something entirely unfamiliar. Some will have a precise professional goal. Others will discover their direction through a course, a faculty mentor, or a question they hadn't previously thought to ask. All of those are legitimate reasons to be here.”