The National Roll Call recognizes Nebraskans who gave the ultimate sacrifice by speaking their names publicly. Organizer Thomas Allison, assistant director of the Military and Veteran Success Center, grew up in a military family and knows many people in the campus community feel a connection to the people whose names are on the list.
“It means a lot to a number of different individuals, whether that be a service member who has recently made the transition to being a student, those people who may have retired, a faculty or staff member who may have served previously,” Allison said. “It also affects dependents in that they know the sacrifices their family members have made.”
The National Roll Call begins at 12:45 p.m. Nov. 10 in the Platte River Room of the Nebraska Union.
The program begins with the presentation of colors by the ROTC Joint Color Guard, National Anthem and opening remarks. Following a moment of silence at 1 p.m., members of the university community will take turns reading the names of service members from Nebraska who were killed in action from World War I to the present. The list consists of almost 5,000 names and will take around 4.5 hours to read with each person taking a ten-minute block.
For the National Roll Call, Allison contacts previous readers to see if they would be interested in participating again. Then he makes phone calls until the more than 20 slots are filled. Readers include ROTC members, military connected faculty, staff and students, members of the VA, guests from the community and administrators from the university.
“People are extremely responsive about participating each year,” he said. “The support for the National Roll Call has been great.”
Allison, a “military brat,” understands that significance. He was born in England and lived in North Dakota and California before his father retired after 28 years in the U.S. Air Force while stationed at Offutt Air Force Base.
“I probably would have followed in his footsteps except I was medically disqualified quite early in life,” Allison said.
As a young boy, Allison had a stroke, which precluded him from joining the military, but he always kept a place for soldiers and veterans in his heart. His brother served and his brother-in-law is currently serving.
“I kept my thumb on the heartbeat of the military throughout my life,” he said. “That’s part of me. It’s part of who you are.”
Allison sat on a task force that helped establish the Military and Veteran Success Center while he was working in Career Services at Nebraska. He worked with the center and the student veteran population from the center’s founding in 2015 until he became a full-time employee at the center four years ago.
He helped develop the Learn to Earn program, when a company can come to the center and “have a one-organization career fair.”
Allison said it’s important to student military members, veterans and their families to have a comfortable place on campus they can go to relax, use a computer or print a paper, and to have one place to connect with a variety of services, including Counseling and Psychological Services or Veterans Affairs.
Allison said he enjoys being part of making the transition smoother for those with whom he works. Like transitioning from one base to another, those students are making another transition and the center can be their guide.
With his background in career services, it’s meaningful to Allison to work with the military and veteran population to adapt to their new path, like helping them communicate their experience in a way civilian employers will understand rather than in language the military would use.
“The military is used to abbreviations, and lots of different words mean completely different things in the military than what they do in regular civilian life,” he said.
Allison said it’s especially rewarding to help dependents and their families as they begin a new chapter. He provides his firsthand perspective as a dependent to the table when meeting with them about the variety of resources available.
“The Military and Veteran Success Center is a place they can ask a myriad of different questions and we won’t steer them away without an answer,” Allison said. “It is an honor to serve students in this way.”
