News

John A. Williams – You Should Know His Story

johnwilliamsjpg-fc4a767039d8d4c0John A. Williams is an alumnus of Syracuse University, and also a military veteran. You should know his story, because it’s a Syracuse University story—one that speaks to our past, our present, and our future.

Williams was born December 5th, 1925 in Jackson, Mississippi. As a young child he and his family moved to Syracuse, NY where he grew up the oldest of 4 children. There, he attended local public schools and left before graduating from Central High School (where he played football, basketball and ran track) to enlist in the Navy in 1943 during World War II. Williams served as a medical corpsman in the Pacific Theater and was honorably discharged in 1946.

After his service, Williams came back to Syracuse to finish his secondary schooling at a Vocational High School in the city. He then attended Syracuse University on the GI Bill where he earned degrees in Journalism and English, graduating in 1950. During his time at Syracuse University Williams discovered his passion for writing and his professors encouraged that career path. “It was something he liked, but not something he imagined he could be”, his son Dennis said. His time at Syracuse University set the course for the rest of his life.

Williams did not get into the world of journalism directly following school. He first spent time working several public relations positions before landing a job with Ebony and Jet magazines as a European correspondent and briefly covered Africa for Newsweek in the mid-1960s. Williams soon realized that journalism was not meant for him. He felt the profession was only going to take him so far and was looking for more. As he did in college, Williams took to writing.

Williams began his writing career while still working as a journalist. He wrote 21 books, 13 novels, several of them were created based on his experiences growing up in Syracuse. In 1967 Williams wrote the classic bestseller, The Man Who Cried I Am and in 1998, his book Safari West won the American Book Award.

Throughout Williams’s professional career he held many different teaching positions at many different Universities and Colleges; College of the Virgin Islands, the City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, University of California at Santa Barbara, La Guardia Community College, the University of Hawaii, Boston University and Rutgers University. In 1970, he received the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Syracuse in 1995. While at Rutgers, Williams was named the Paul Robeson Professor of English and retired in 1994.

Williams passed away July 3rd, 2015 in Paramus, NJ. He was 89.

John A. Williams is an alumnus of Syracuse University, and a veteran of the U.S. military. You should know his story.

Notable Veteran Alumni: Major General Donald D. Brown

donald brownMajor General Donald D. Brown is an alumnus of Syracuse University, and also a military veteran. You should know his story, because it’s a Syracuse University story—one that speaks to our past, our present, and our future.

Brown was born in 1931 in Montreal, Quebec and grew up in Canada before leaving to come to the United States for his undergraduate education. Leaving one big city and going to another, Brown attended Columbia University and participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, eventually earning his BA in 1955 and receiving a commission in the United States Air Force. Brown’s first mission in 1956 was flying C-118s over the North Atlantic from McGuire Air Force Base, NJ with the 18th Air Transport Squadron. Brown really enjoyed this assignment, flying the C-118s for six years before becoming a flight instructor at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma in 1964. Before returning to the Air Force, Brown attended Syracuse University’s School of Management, where he received a Master’s in Business Administration in 1965.

Brown’s career as a flight pilot in New Jersey and Oklahoma took him to distant places he’d heard about as a child in Canada. He was assigned to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam from 1966-1968 as the assistant base supply officer, eventually becoming the base supply officer. His travels also took him to Vietnam, where he served from 1968-1969 as the squadron chief for the 315th Special Operations Wing, based out of Phan Rang Air Base in southern Vietnam. Brown’s successes in Vietnam and Guam, in addition to his time in Oklahoma and his return to McGuire as the commander of the 30th Military Airlift Squadron, led to his appointment to the Military Airlift Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois in 1973. While in Illinois, Brown was director of logistics from 1973-1975, and later the assistant deputy chief of staff for logistics from 1975-1976.

As Brown continued to fly, his career continued to climb as well! In 1977 Brown was assigned as the vice commander of the 62nd Military Airlift Wing out of McCord Air Force Base in Washington, a post which he held until 1979 when he was transferred to Scott Air Force Base, where he eventually became the deputy chief of staff for plans in 1980. Under his tenure at Military Airlift Command, Brown was responsible for all long-range planning for the command, which consisted of over 92,000 personnel at more than 300 locations in 24 countries. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Brown was promoted to deputy chief of staff for operations at Military Airlift Command, responsible for all flying operations worldwide and assumed that position in 1984! Missions under his command include Operation Just Cause in Panama at Christmas, 1989 and airlifting personnel to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990.

Brown’s last assignment was as the Commander of the 22nd Air Force, Military Airlift Command, stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California from 1984 to his retirement in 1987. The 22nd Air Force’s missions have a wide geographic scope, from the Mississippi River to Eastern Africa and from the Arctic Ocean to Antarctica. He was responsible for over 20,000 personnel who perform airlift missions around the world. Brown has also won many awards and commendations from the Air Force, such as the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf clusters, and the Bronze Star Medal. His 146 combat missions in Vietnam were recognized with the Republic of Vietnam’s Gallantry Cross with palms. Brown was inducted into the Order of the Sword, the highest honor awarded within the US Air Force, in 1987.

Currently, Brown resides in Tacoma, Washington, where he is on the Board of Directors for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra.

Major General Donald D. Brown is an alumnus of Syracuse University and a veteran of the U.S. military. You should know his story.

Syracuse University and the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944

Written by: Patrick M. Jones, Ph.D.

GI 9-16On June 22, 1944, with the D-Day landings just 16 days old, World War II was fully raging. American Naval and Air Forces were operating in every theater around the globe and American Ground Forces were fighting their way up the Italian peninsula, across France, throughout Burma, and on the island of Saipan. On campus back in Syracuse, the last class of Aviation Students from the Army Air Forces College Training Program had just graduated, bringing the university’s wartime military education programs to a close with over 4,200 soldiers, sailors, and airmen having been trained at Syracuse starting in Spring 1943; and the first three World War II veterans to enroll at Syracuse University had arrived in May. In the midst of all of this, President Roosevelt was planning for the Post-War era and signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill, on that day.

Syracuse University is intimately tied to the GI Bill from its inception to its implementation. Chancellor William P. Tolley, as president of the Association of American Colleges from 1942-1943, had worked with Congress in drafting the Bill’s language and promoting its passage. He believed that education was a cornerstone of the post-war future, writing in The 1945 Onondagan that, “if there is to be a brave new world, its foundation of truth and freedom will be prepared here. This is a task that calls for ideals as well as intelligence, for integrity as well as training, for faith and patience as well as courage and resolution. And from what I know of the men and women in Syracuse, I am sure that we will all do more than our part.”[1]

And do their part they did. The university community welcomed veterans with open arms and in unheard of ways. Veteran programs were developed that included an open admissions policy, guidance counseling, career services, and a variety of support services including remedial reading, counseling for those suffering from psychological trauma brought on by the war, special physical education courses for those with disabilities, therapy for those with speech problems, and instruction in lip-reading for veterans with hearing difficulties. If a veteran had left high school in order to enlist in the military, the university worked with local schools to transfer credit and have a diploma awarded. Finally, the university offered accelerated courses, a year-round schedule, and a placement program to help veterans find employment upon graduation.

The veterans responded by coming in droves, transforming the campus overnight. Whereas the Fall 1945 enrollment had been 4,391 students, it was 18,456 students in Fall 1947, of which 9,120 were veterans. To accommodate the explosion in enrollment the university erected 100 temporary classroom buildings on campus and bought land south of campus for housing where it installed 200 temporary buildings from the War Department, 22 barracks at Collendale, 600 military-style housing units at the former university farm, and 175 trailers for married students in an apple orchard at Drumlins. Students were also housed in a hotel, at a fraternal lodge, in former Army buildings in Mattydale and Baldwinsville, and at the New York State Fairgrounds.

Even with these additional buildings, the campus could not accommodate all of the returning veterans wanting an education. Syracuse addressed this by starting two branch campuses and joining with other universities in a consortium.  The two branch campuses were established in Endicott and Utica in 1946. The campus in Endicott is now SUNY Binghamton and the campus in Utica is today’s Utica College. The consortium, known as the Associated Colleges of the State of New York, offered classes at former barracks at Sampson on Lake Geneva, at Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, and at the abandoned Army barracks in Utica (Mohawk College).

Five years after the signing of the GI Bill, the explosion of veteran students began to subside. All freshmen were housed on campus in 1949 and what has come to be called the “GI Bulge” was over in 1951. In its wake, it left Syracuse University transformed from a relatively small regional college into an international research university. The major beneficiary, however, was a society transformed by a generation of university-educated veterans who went on to make the world a better place, each in his or her own way, with the ideals and intelligence, integrity and training, faith and patience, and the courage and resolution, of which Chancellor Tolley had written in 1945.

Syracuse University celebrates the anniversary of the GI Bill, embraces the vision it set forth as a means to repay veterans for their service and improve society, and is proud to have played a role in its realization. We remain committed to serving veterans of every generation. Today, Syracuse is embracing hundreds of veteran students who are attending the university on the Post-911 GI Bill. As current Chancellor Kent Syverud stated in his inaugural address on April 11, 2014, building on both our history and current capabilities, we will make Syracuse University “the best place for veterans.”

[1]William P. Tolley, “Chancellor William P. Tolley,” in The 1945 Onondagan, ed. Agnes Shoffner (New York, NY: Robert W. Kelly Publishing Corporation, 1945), 10-11.

Student Veteran Cynthia Kao-Johnson Creates “Resilient Documentary” at Syracuse University

Documentary Film and History (DFH) graduate student Cynthia Kao-Johnson entered the military with a creative mind and left with the added benefits of skills and discipline. Now she wants to make a difference by igniting conversations about sensitive topics through her skills in documentary filmmaking.

Kao-Johnson is a mother of three, an active-duty army wife, and a veteran who was in the Army Reserve from 2009 to 2013. According to her, being a reservist is living in both the civilian and the military world at the same time. She is used to having a civilian job while living in a military world. This gave her a unique advantage but it also created trouble. It was a surreal experience when she left that world. Not having to go to drills, or having people understand the acronyms that had become part of her vocabulary, took some getting used to. Feeling it was time to explore a different world, she enrolled in the DFH program at Syracuse University. Kao-Johnson came back to grad school searching for individual creativity, and to see how she could shape her storytelling in an artistic and provocative way.

“I was a broadcast journalist with the Air Force. I did a lot of camerawork. So I have a lot of creativity and a yearning for the freedom that documentary film-making affords.”

Throughout the year the program requires the students to put together a thesis film in order to complete the graduate program. Kao-Johnson’s film revolves around veterans’ experiences with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and is a complete feature-length film. It deals with understanding PTSD and what veterans go through paralleled with how the community and outside world perceive it. She brings to life different war eras and how PTSD was experienced in earlier times because the actual term did not exist until 1980. Older vets sometimes did not even know they struggled from the disorder.

This topic is very close to Kao-Johnson as she personally struggled with PTSD herself. This encouraged her to integrate her story into the film as she felt that the veterans she was working with were making an impact on her life as she hoped she was making an impact on theirs. So the film to her is not just surveying different troops and chalking out a story, it is something much closer to heart. The film showcased at the end of last month. She has recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to market and distribute the movie further. The trailer can be viewed on YouTube.

The Master’s of Documentary Film & History (DFH), a joint degree program between the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is the only program in the country designed for students seeking the skills and knowledge to produce documentary films on historical subject matter.

 

Meghavaty Suresh is a Graduate Assistant at IVMF currently pursuing a Master of Science in New Media Management from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She holds a Master’s in Management and Bachelor’s in Commerce from Mumbai University.

 

 

Alumnus Receives Medal of Honor for Wartime Courage

SheminMOH2Sergeant William Shemin ’24, a graduate of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor today at the White House. The award was presented to Shemin’s two daughters, Ina Shemin-Bass ’53 and Elsie Shemin-Roth ’51.

The President relayed Shemin’s tale of saving three wounded fellow soldiers despite a barrage of machine-gun fire during his service in France during World War 1. Eventually, Shemin would assume command of his platoon following the death of the platoon’s senior leaders.

SU Picture
Three generations of the Shemin family (and Syracuse University graduates) celebrate the fourth generation and William Shemin’s Medal of Honor presentation at the White House on June 2, 2015. Front row (L-R): Ina Shemin-Bass ’53, holding the MOH, and Elsie Shemin-Roth ’51 (daughters of William Shemin). Back row (L-R): Scott Bass ’15 (great grandson), William Cass ’08 (great grandson), Rachel Forman ’05 (great granddaughter), Seth Forman (Rachel’s husband), Leslie Shemin-Lester ’84 (granddaughter) and Sam Cass ’13 (great grandson).

In his sentiments during the presentation, President Obama stated, “It has taken a long time for Henry Johnson and William Shemin to receive the recognition they deserve. And there are surely others whose heroism is still unacknowledged, and uncelebrated. So we have work to do, as a nation, to make sure that all of our heroes’ stories are told. And we’ll keep at it, no matter how long it takes. America’s the country we are today because of people like Henry and William. Americans who signed up to serve and rose to meet their responsibilities and then went beyond, the least we can do is to say we know who you are. We know what you did for us. We are forever grateful.”

The Medals of Honor were the 44th and 45th that President Obama has awarded.

View the Medal of Honor presentations at https://youtu.be/EusxvUrgKQg.

 

 

 

U.S. Secretary of the Army Visits Syracuse University

Former Congressman, representing CNY and Northern New York, John M. McHugh discusses veteran and military-connected programs at SU


The Honorable John M. McHugh, Secretary of the U.S. Army and former member of Congress representing Northern and Central New York, visited Syracuse University on Thursday morning, May 21, to learn more about the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) and the many veteran and military-connected programs and services offered at Syracuse University.

DSC_0601

Secretary McHugh’s visit included a brief stop at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, where he received an update on SU’s Defense Comptrollership Program (DCP) – a military degree program that represents a unique cooperative endeavor between Syracuse University and the Department of Defense (DoD) – and spoke with Military and DoD Civilian members of the DCP, Class of 2015.  More than 1,600 graduates of this program have provided meaningful contributions in demanding management positions.

SectArmySecretary McHugh then attended a discussion with the leadership team from the ‎Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF).  The meeting provided an opportunity to brief Secretary McHugh on the IVMF, its programs, research, community engagement and collaborations enacted in service to America’s veterans and military families.

An additional morning session followed at the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs where SU Chancellor Kent Syverud participated in a review of Syracuse University’s efforts to best serve veterans, military-connected students, and military family members who are students or employees at Syracuse University.

“The Secretary’s visit to Syracuse University speaks directly to the work we are doing for those who have served the nation in uniform,” states Vice Chancellor for Veteran and Military Affairs, and IVMF Executive Director Mike Haynie.  “Secretary McHugh is well aware of Syracuse University’s historic commitment to veterans, and IVMF’s mission to fully leverage the intellectual, human and social capital of higher education, in service to America’s veterans and their families.”

Secretary McHugh, in anticipation of his visit to Syracuse, shared, “Syracuse University is a leader in offering timely and rigorous programs designed for the military and for our transitioning service members.  I am looking forward to learning more about SU’s efforts in this area, as well as gaining a better understanding of the IVMF’s programs and initiatives, and the national impact the institute is having on our nation’s veterans and military families.”

Secretary McHugh specifically pointed out the impact the Boots to Business program has on those serving in the U.S. Army. Operated by Syracuse University, Boots to Business is an entrepreneurial education and training program offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as part of the Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP).  The Boots to Business program has been delivered at 46 Army bases in five countries and 21 states.  More impressive is that 45% of all Boots to Business applicants in 2014 were transitioning service-members (8,230) of the U.S. Army.

Real Dads Wear Orange: From Afghanistan with Love

Sergeant Bryane Greene is thousands of miles away deployed in Afghanistan but his heart and soul are back home with his family especially since his oldest child, Harmony, graduated from college this month. The Office of Veteran and Military Affairs at Syracuse University made certain that Sergeant Greene could watch his daughter receive her degree from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University through an online live stream. It was a moment he will always cherish.

SFCGreenedaughtersGraduationMy name is Bryane A. Greene; I was born in Chicago, Illinois and currently reside in California. I have been in the military for over 16 years and with two deployments it has not been easy as a dad. Having a family structure in which everyone supports each other as we do makes times like this easier yet they are still missed. I am currently deployed in Bagram, Afghanistan, finishing up on the second leg of an 18-month tour.

Harmony is the oldest of six and it was an honor to watch her take that walk across the stage and graduate from college. Seeing a young lady with so much desire and heart never give up or give in has been wonderful. Knowing that when times got hard being away from home, to see her go through the growing pains of becoming a woman and knowing how to handle those situations, to get to this day was incredible. At times, she had to work late hours to finish her class work, all the while trying to have a normal college lifestyle, too.  Let’s just say that I have watched her not just receive her degree, but I have seen what road she had to take to get there, and it makes me even prouder of her accomplishment. She has the strength beyond measure to achieve whatever she sets out to attain no matter how hard the road is.

I remember when we first took Harmony out to Syracuse, going to her dorm and seeing that our big girl was turning into a young woman right before our very eyes. She made the first step in pursuing her dream, and to see her excitement in just shopping for things for her college room was beautiful.  With all that Harmony has experienced at Syracuse, I can confidently say that it was a good fit. She was able to do what she wanted, which was to be on her own and in control of her own success. Yes, missing home was hard at times, but the Syracuse community kept her busy and now, four years later, she has accomplished what she set out to do: earn her degreeand move towards accomplishing the rest of her goals.  To Syracuse, I say thank you; for you are regarded by our entire family as a great university. Being from Chicago, Blue and Orange fit right in.  So now I have the Blue and Orange of both because “Real Dads Wear Orange.” Go Cuse!

Sergeant Bryane Greene is expected home this fall and he eagerly awaits reuniting with his family.

For more information on the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs, visit https://veterans.syracuse.edu.

Syracuse University 1924 Alumnus to Receive Medal of Honor Posthumously

medalofhonorSyracuse University celebrates the recognition of 1924 alumnus, William Shemin, who will receive his long-deserved Medal of Honor–the nation’s highest military decoration for valor—for conspicuous gallantry during World War I on June 2, in a White House ceremony. President Barack Obama will present the medal to Shemin’s daughter, Elsie Shemin-Roth ’51, who was instrumental in ensuring her father’s service and valor were recognized.

Shemin, who was stationed in Syracuse prior to deploying to France, returned to pursue studies at Syracuse University in 1919 and graduated in 1924. During his studies at SU, he was also a member of the Syracuse University football and lacrosse teams.  Many of Shemin’s descendants have attended Syracuse University, some of which include his son, Emmanuel “Manny” Shemin ‘52, who served as a University Trustee, his daughters Elsie Shemin Roth ’51 and Ina Shemin-Bass ’53, his granddaughter, Leslie Shemin-Lester ’84, who currently serves on the College of Visual and Performing Arts Deans Advisory Council, and his great-grandson William Cass ’08, who is co-chair of the university’s Metro New York Leadership Council.

To our knowledge, William Shemin is Syracuse University’s first and only graduate to earn the Medal of Honor.  Information on his courageous action is available at http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/shemin/.  President Obama’s announcement of William Shemin as the nation’s newest Medal of Honor recipient is posted at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/14/president-obama-award-medal-honor.  A more in-depth story can be found here.

Maxwell MSSc helped me continue a lifetime of service

Written by Chris Farlow

The Master of Social Science program was an ideal fit for me personally and professionally.  While I was serving on active duty, a traditional full residency graduate program was unmanageable due to frequent deployments and a hectic work schedule that involved unusual shifts and being on-call.  The MSSc program at Syracuse offered many of the benefits of a traditional graduate school experience blended with the flexibility of distance learning and, of course, I was able to take off an occasional semester due to a deployment.  After I attended the first residency, I established relationships with other students and faculty that I still maintain ten years later, and those interactions made the distance coursework much more rewarding.  

 As I transitioned from active duty into the reserves, the MSSc was an enormous help to me in being selected to become a U.S. diplomat.  Of the 22 people who competed on my interview day with the State Department in 2010, only two of us were selected, and coincidentally (or not?), both of us were military veterans who had attended the Maxwell School.  The program still continues to benefit my reserve career, and was a necessary part of being selected to the Foreign Area Officer program, which required an advanced degree in international or regional studies, and my MSSc degree was accredited.  I now serve as a reserve defense attaché, representing the U.S. military in U.S. Embassies in Africa and the Middle East.

One thing I would like to emphasize to veterans is the advantage of a blended program like the MSSc program.  If you’re simply pursuing your graduate degree purely by distance learning, you don’t often have the opportunity to socialize and trade ideas with high-caliber graduate students in professions far different than your own.  At Syracuse, I remember some of my fellow students were college admissions officers, regional managers of non-profit charities, political strategists, and high School history teachers.  They all had different perspectives on international affairs than I did, and I think that they gained perspective through academic exchange with a veteran.

Chris Farlow MSScChris Farlow is currently the Vice Consul of the United States in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and previously served as a diplomat in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Washington, D.C.  Prior to becoming a diplomat, he served eight years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He completed the MSSc program at Syracuse in 2009 and graduated from the University of South Florida in 2000.  He continues to serve in the Air Force Reserve, as does his wife, Anne.  He is originally from Bishopville, Maryland, and speaks English, French, and Russian.

Notable Veteran Alumni: Joseph “Beau” Biden III

Beau Biden 1Joseph “Beau” Biden III is an alumnus of Syracuse University, and also a military veteran. You should know his story, because it’s a Syracuse University story—one that speaks to our past, our present, and our future.

Biden III, the eldest son of former Senator and current Vice President Joe Biden, was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. Following his father’s footsteps, Beau attended his father’s high school alma mater, Archmere Academy, was a member of the same fraternity, Psi Upsilon, at the University of Pennsylvania, and continued to Syracuse University College of Law.

Biden began his career in public service shortly after graduation from law school. First, he served as a clerk for Judge Steven McAuliffe of the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire. A year later, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Policy Development as a counselor, where he worked on issues such as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Violence against Women Act. From 1997 until 2002, Beau served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia. He later turned to private practice as a partner in the Wilmington-based law firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Black.

Beau Biden 2While working in the private sector, Biden joined the Delaware Army National Guard in 2003 as a member of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. Notably, he served as Interim Legal Advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice in post-war Kosovo, assisting in the development of a law enforcement and criminal justice system.

Elected in 2006 as Delaware’s Attorney General, Joseph Beau Biden III took office and served two consecutive terms. In his first term on October 2008, the 261st Signal Brigade was activated for a 12-month deployment supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq, during which Beau delegated his Attorney General responsibilities to serve. In November 2011 Beau Biden was promoted to the rank of Major.

Protecting children was among Biden’s highest priorities as attorney general, evident through his creation of a Child Predator Task Force. Beau assisted in making Delaware a national leader in the fight to protect children from predators by successfully pushing for tougher, mandatory prison sentences for child predators and distributors of child pornography. In addition, Beau created the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, designed to protect homeowners from consumer fraud and help stop the rising tide of foreclosures. The Task Force’s work with the Consumer Protection Unit resulted in what is believed to be the largest mortgage rescue fraud indictment in Delaware’s history.

Beau Biden 2Notably, in 2011, Beau was honored with the Voice of Courage Award from Darkness to Light (D2L), a national nonprofit organization working to empower and teach adults to prevent child sexual abuse; and in 2013, Beau was awarded the LifeLock Ultimate Award for his efforts to fight identity theft, improve online safety and educate children about cybersecurity. Described by many, Beau Biden was a careful, cautious, and deliberate politician, who shunned the limelight to focus on the issues at hand.

Beau Biden passed away May 30th, 2015 and is survived by his wife, Hallie, and two children.

Joseph “Beau” Biden III is an alumnus of Syracuse University and a veteran of the U.S. military. You should know his story.