The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) is pleased to announce that Colonel Adam J. Hepp will deliver the Eleventh Annual General Josiah Bunting Veterans Day Lecture. Colonel Hepp’s talk is entitled “‘Never Volunteer for Anything’: Volunteers, Leaders, and the Value of Trust.” The event will take place using Zoom on November 11, Veterans Day, at 7:00 pm.
Colonel Hepp has a most distinguished record of achievement. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. He went on to earn Juris Doctor at the University of Colorado. During his military service, he served as a fighter pilot and flew sixty-seven F-16 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Afghanistan, he led a twenty-man team in Operation Enduring Freedom. Subsequently, he served in the Pentagon as political and military advisor to the Secretary of Air Force and Air Force senior leaders and the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) as political-military affairs strategist. He is currently in the Office of the District Attorney, 1st Judicial District, Colorado, and deputy chief of staff in the Air Force Reserves.
Colonel Hepp’s numerous awards include Meritorious Service Medal with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Medal with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, and NATO Medal.
General Josiah Bunting, for whom the series was named, served as an infantry officer in Vietnam with the Ninth Infantry Division. He received the Bronze Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Army Commendation Medal, Vietnam Honor Medal–2nd class, Presidential Unit Citation, Parachute Badge, Combat Infantry Badge and Ranger Tab. Subsequently, he taught history at West Point and at the Naval War College. He served as President, Briarcliff College (1973-1977); President, Hampden-Sydney College (1977-1987); and Superintendent, VMI (1995-2003). He published four novels, including The Lionheads (G. Braziller, 1972), a best-seller that was selected by Time Magazine as one of “The Ten Best Novels” of 1973.
Veterans Day honors American veterans of all wars. The commemorative holiday grew out of the end of World War I and the armistice that called a halt to the hostilities, signed in 1918 on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Veterans Day succeeded Armistice Day. It recognized the obvious: that World War I was not, as many had hoped, the great war to end all great wars. And so, in 1954, after World War II and the Korean War, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law Congressional legislation that traded the name Armistice Day for Veterans Day and broadened the purpose of the commemoration.
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