TEMPE, Ariz. — The Pat Tillman Veterans Center at Arizona State University honored 714 graduating student-veterans this fall semester with its bi-annual Honor Stole Ceremony at Gammage Auditorium in Tempe on Saturday morning.
“Today represents an end of an era,” Javier Rafael Aguirre Martinez, a U.S. Marines veteran and graduating senior, said.
Aguirre Martinez says Saturday's Honor Stole Ceremony was a ceremony that represents so much for everyone being honored.
“It has been a long journey trying to transition from an enlisted Marine to an officer,” he said.
An immigrant from Mexico, Aguirre Martinez moved to the U.S. as a child and later returned to his birth country, where he was employed as a custodial worker.
“I came from Veracruz, Mexico… a very poor family,” Aguirre Martinez said. “But I always had the love and support of my mother and my brother, and I think that made a drastic difference in how I grew up.”
Aguirre Martinez eventually returned to Arizona and enlisted in the Marines, rising to the rank of gunnery sergeant.
“Around 2016 I had the pleasure to serve with the Department of State and I served in Cameroon, Yaoundé, Islamabad, Pakistan, and Canberra, Australia, as a Marine security guard defending the embassies and all the interests that we have out there,” he said.
Aguirre Martinez has been an on-campus student while still on active duty, participating in the Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, which allows top Marines to attend the university full-time, with the goal of being commissioned as officers after graduation.
“I am an Army veteran myself and I’m an ASU alum,” Shawn Banzhaf, the executive director of The Pat Tillman Veterans Center, said. “I actually wanted to get my degree here, just so I could get my veterans honor stole.”
Banzhaf says this semester’s celebration marks a significant milestone, as the Tillman Center continues its mission by now supporting more than 20,000 military-affiliated students. It’s a new achievement that underscores its commitment to serving those who have served.
“A student-veteran, they raised their right hand and said they would defend our country,” Banzhaf said. “They said if I’m called upon, I will give my life for my nation…. to say that and then complete a college degree at the same time, you put those things together and that’s power.”
“Pat (Tillman) believed in education, and he always demanded the best of himself, his peers and his teachers,” Aguirre Martinez said. “And I think us receiving this stole kind of, by no way, shape or form have we amounted to the things that he has accomplished, but I think he would be proud of us for the things we have done.”
This is just the beginning for students like Aguirre Martinez, who majored in technological entrepreneurship and management at the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering with a minor in real estate at the W.P. Carey School of Business, while also being part of Barrett, the Honors College.
This semester more than 500 military-affiliated family members are also graduating, totaling 1,215 military-connected students.
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