College Exhibit "Pride of Our Nation, Pride of Our College" Honors Veterans, Military Members
November 6, 2015
Hudson Valley Community College announces the fifth annual "Pride of Our Nation, Pride of Our College" exhibit, honoring veterans and active duty servicemen and women who are family members or ancestors of the college's students, faculty and staff.
The exhibit of more than 100 photographs, artifacts, ephemera and stories from the American Civil War through the present-day conflicts in the Middle East will open with a free reception on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 5 p.m. in the Marvin Library Learning Commons' Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Atrium. It will be on view to the public at no charge through Monday, Dec. 7 during regular library hours.
Held roughly between Veterans Day and Pearl Harbor Day each year since 2011, Pride of Our Nation, Pride of Our College has grown in size and scope since its beginning.
Among those honored in the current exhibit are:
Thomas Curry, an Irish immigrant who volunteered for the 83rd New York Infantry, Company D in 1863 and was sent to Andersonville Prison Camp after being captured by Confederate forces in May 1864 during the Battle of the Wilderness. He is an ancestor of a Hudson Valley student.
SSG Derek J. Farley, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team Leader in the United States Army, who served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007 and was killed in action at the age of 24 on August 17, 2010. He was awarded purple hearts in 2007 and 2010, and the Bronze star in 2010. SSG Farley is the son of Carrie Farley, secretary to the Dean of Liberal Arts at the college.
John J. Callahan, Jr., 5th Regiment, 55th Company, U.S. Marine Corps, 2nd Division, who served with the United States Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I and was killed at the Battle of Belleau Wood on June 11, 1918. Only 17 years old at the time of his death, Callahan was the first of six marines from the Capital Region to die in the war. He is the uncle of Hudson Valley Community College Board of Trustees member Conrad Lang Jr. and great uncle of college librarian Valarie Lang Waldin.
Omaid Yousofzai, a native of Afghanistan, who was an interpreter with the United States Army in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2006. He translated documents, helped train members of the Afghan Army, and went on missions with the Army Special Forces into the Northern provinces to meet with local elders. Afterward, Yousofzai immigrated to the United States, where he graduated from Hudson Valley in 2011 and later from SUNY Cobleskill. He is currently employed by Rensselaer County.
Margaret Ashmead Green-Wit who stood less than five feet and weighed less than one hundred pounds when she enlisted in the United States Army WACS in 1943. Her uniform, the smallest issued by the Army, had to be shortened and taken in to fit the private third class. Despite her gender and diminutive size, Private Ashmead Green-Wit was assigned to the historian's office attached to Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. She served on the front lines from Australia to New Guinea to MacArthur's return to the Philippines. Now retired and living in Florida, she is the grandmother of Hudson Valley graduate Michaela Childs.