| OU loss can’t put damper on Hero Day |
196th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment Ohio Army National Guard ATHENS, Ohio—Although the Ohio University Bobcats football team fell to the Kent State University Golden Flashes 33-25 on Sept. 29, the game could not overshadow the excitement of the Army-sponsored Hero Day. The OU ROTC program hosted the event—a salute to the men and women who serve the nation—which was centered on the school’s football game. The day started early with the quarterly meeting of the Ohio University Army ROTC Society of Alumni and Friends—the organization’s best attended meeting ever. Directly after, ROTC cadets hosted a massive tailgate party complete with activities, games, music and food. The Ohio Army National Guard and the U.S. Army, both event sponsors, had several tents set up as well as their crowd-pleasing combat simulators. “These simulators are very popular amongst our future Soldiers,” said Sgt. William J. Howard of the Army’s Lancaster Recruiting Company. “They run through different scenarios and just build their community awareness (of the military).” The family-oriented tailgate party was open to everyone and was geared toward current and potential ROTC cadets. Military personnel and their civilian counterparts offered plenty of events with a football toss, basketball toss, bean bag toss and a marksmanship target practice simulator. Army recruiters from throughout Southeast Ohio handed out free items and made military-style identification tags, or dog tags, for the kids. “It was good to see interaction between the new incoming class and the outgoing class,” said senior Cadet Adam Locks. “A lot of us got to really talk because we hardly see each other due to our class schedules.” Moments before the football game started, the cadets rolled an 1860 Mountain Howitzer cannon onto the sideline, an OU ROTC tradition. Simultaneously, the crowd was treated to a display by the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army parachute team, who jumped into the stadium with the game ball. The five-man team performed aerial tricks and acrobatics before landing squarely in the bobcat logo on the 50-yard line. Several military members—including Lt. Col. William A Hauschild, the ROTC Bobcat battalion commander, Cadet Wesley Wiblin, the school’s highest-ranking cadet, Jim McVicker, president of the OU Army ROTC Society of Alumni and Friends and Sgt. Sam Binkley from the Ohio Army National Guard’s Columbus-based 174th Air Defense Artillery Brigade—participated in the festivities. Binkley, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, was honored by conducting the official coin-toss, which the Bobcats won. Police officers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Ohio University and Athens Police Departments, along with troops from the ROTC and Ohio National Guard, unfurled a 24-feet-by-12-feet ceremonial American flag before a near-capacity crowd. The university’s 80-man student ensemble, the “Singing Men of Ohio,” performed the national anthem. The first half was devastating for the Bobcats as their defense struggled to contain the Golden Flashes’ running game. After Ohio’s initial three and out to start the game’s first possession, Kent made it 7-0 in just one minute, 57 seconds and went into halftime with a comfortable 17-10 edge. Col. Glen C. Hammond III, commander of the Columbus-based 16th Engineer Brigade, kicked off the halftime show by administering enlistment oaths to dozens of new members of the Ohio Army National Guard. The event drew a standing ovation from the crowd, which did not subside until the troops marched off the field. Although the second half didn’t fare much better for the Bobcats—after failing to convert on a fourth down and 16 yards to go, the Bobcats lost 32-25—the loss couldn’t damper their spirits. “It was a great team effort between the different braches of the Army,” Hauschild said. “We want to sustain the improvements made this year as the event was bigger than last year, but we can always build upon a great success. Let’s get a helicopter fly-over next year.”
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