Broncos Honor Service at Mission Church Veterans Day Ceremony

Scene

Nov 12

Written By Dylan Ryu.

(Nina Glick/The Santa Clara)

Santa Clara University students, faculty and community members gathered Tuesday morning in front of the Mission Church to honor Veterans Day and the 107th anniversary of the World War I armistice.

The day began before sunrise, as students from the Bronco Battalion, an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, embarked from campus on an over four-mile round-trip ruck march to the City of Santa Clara’s Veterans Memorial Park. By 10:30 a.m., a large crowd of Santa Clara community members watched as the Bronco Battalion presented the colors. Evan DeLong ’29 serenaded the crowd with “Taps” on trumpet, the final note echoing across the Mission Gardens.

Before the keynote remarks, Chris Castaneda, S.J., from Campus Ministry, led an invocation, offering a prayer of gratitude for those who have served and a call for peace in the world.

Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. addresses the audience of the Veteran’s Day celebration in front of the Mission Church. **(Dylan Ryu/The Santa Clara)**

Admiral James O. Ellis Jr., a retired U.S. Navy commander and distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, delivered the keynote address, reflecting on the meaning of service and sacrifice.

“Veterans today represent about six percent of Americans,” Ellis said. “Those currently serving on active duty represent less than one percent of the population. You are indeed unique, and it is well that we remember all of them and all of you.”

He urged the audience to view service not as a burden but as a gift.

“Dr. Martin Luther King defined service as the rent we pay for the space we occupy,” Ellis said. “But I would urge us not to think of service as a cost or a price, but as a gift—one that, if freely and honestly given, will be repaid to us many times over.”

Following the ceremony, attendees visited the new Veterans Lounge in St. Joseph’s Hall, opened in 2024, where members of the campus community shared coffee and stories.

With the wreath laid within the Mission Church, a moment of stillness honoring those who, in Ellis’s words, “stood with us, beside us, and followed us through it all.”