UW-Madison celebrated Veterans Day (November 11) at an event honoring those who have served and continue to serve in the U.S. military. The celebration coincided with the centennial anniversary of Memorial Union’s groundbreaking, a memorial dedicated to the people of UW who have served in our country’s wars. Among those featured in the day’s program was Data Science and Human Behavior graduate student and United States Navy veteran Brenna Pratt.
“Serving in the navy was truly the greatest honor of my life,” said Pratt. “I owe so much of who I am now to the people who shaped me and the people I served with. They taught me how to lead, allowing me to mess up, but still treating me with grace when I did. The community and camaraderie of the military is unlike anything else. It’s a bond that runs deep, and it will always be a part of me and my identity.”
With permission, her remarks from today’s event are shared here:
Good afternoon, my name is Brenna Pratt. I am a Badger alum, current UW graduate student in the Data Science in Human Behavior program, and a U.S. Navy veteran. First and foremost, I want to say thank you for all of your support and being a part of the community that I have eagerly returned to. I’ll try and keep this brief so we can all enjoy the celebration of our beautiful union.
I graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and commissioned as a Naval Officer the same day. I became a Surface Warfare Officer, meaning I would work on warships as a Division Officer, warfare lead, ship driver, and tactician, and later in support of those missions on shore duty. I went first to a Cruiser in San Diego and, at the *incredibly wise and knowledgeable* age of 21, was promptly put in charge of 30-something young Sailors and a host of missions with which I had neither exceptional knowledge about or experience. My eventual success in that position is a testament to the support and training from my Senior Enlisted Sailors and near foolish persistence.
After earning my warfare pin, the pinnacle of your first sea tour, I departed my Cruiser and finished Integrated Air and Missile Defense training. I returned to San Diego as the Fire Control Officer onboard a Destroyer preparing to be deployed permanently to Yokosuka, Japan. It was a grueling and wonderfully fun tour which I am incredibly grateful for, and not just because I met my husband when I, much to my dismay, got stuck on the aircraft carrier while trying to hitch a ride back to my own ship.
I learned more about determination and grit, how to build depth of knowledge and professional competency, and what expertise really entails during that tour than probably any other period in my life. While I cannot say that I had been the best student, nor the most brilliant or impressive Officer I served with, I continuously pursued improvement, something this community and university fostered in me. Now, after seven and eight years of active-duty service respectively, my husband and I are celebrating our first Veterans Day out of uniform.
Preparing these remarks has provided a unique lens through which to reflect on my experiences here and in the military, and even why I chose UW-Madison in the first place. When I was a teenager in a small-town high school in Kansas, I learned about The Wisconsin Idea – a good reflection for my teachers at the time. I’m certain most everyone in this room knows it better than I do, but it bears stating: education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom. This concept and its supporting pillars stuck with me, though I did not know then that someday I would get to see it in action as a student here, or that an NROTC flyer over a water fountain would spark over a decade in uniform in one capacity or another. Then, all I knew was it mirrored a deeply held belief in service to one’s community. I had always envisioned that service would be in the Peace Corps or Engineers Without Borders, not the armed forces, but I had also grown up hearing my father’s stories of camaraderie, triumphs and follies, and the melting pot of the military from his ten years in the Marine Corps, so I suppose my mother was right when she said it was his fault I joined. I’m happy to report that she did come around, especially because that scholarship meant I would be able to attend UW-Madison. I am here, after all, as a product of the Wisconsin Idea in action and programs like the Wisconsin GI Bill and the NROTC scholarship, which facilitate someone with bigger dreams than pockets, given they’re willing to trade a good portion of their 20s and a few grey hairs for it.
I think many people have an image in their head when they hear “military” and I would hazard a guess that I probably don’t look much like that image. The people I served with in the Navy are as diverse as our country and those unique perspectives are the very thing that makes us strong. I had the opportunity to live and work alongside people I likely never would have met otherwise, who represent the best of our Nation, and I had the great privilege of leading some of them.
The military is peculiar with respect to how our profession is so fully intertwined with our lives, both practically and intangibly. When I first joined, I didn’t fully grasp the shared understanding and recognition between those that served; that it’s almost a relief to know they understand some of your experiences in a way few can, because they lived them too. I am deeply appreciative of it now, especially with our own University Veteran Services here on campus. To meet other vets and have that common ground right away has provided steadiness I didn’t realize I needed while I find my footing as a civilian and veteran. I put my uniform up for the last time this August, but the Navy will always be a part of me; after all, I came to UW in 2014 and spent every Tuesday in uniform sticking out like a sore thumb and then served in it for seven wonderful and deeply challenging years. It was a magnificent adventure and the greatest honor of my life.
The pillars of the Wisconsin [Experience]: Empathy & Humility, Relentless Curiosity, Intellectual Competency, and Purposeful Action are traits I relied on as an Officer, that I looked for in mentors, and that I tried to nurture in those charged to my care. They represent a community I want to be a part of, and values I hope to live by. I learned how to succeed and also how to fail here; how to dust myself off, get back up, and learn from it. I took those lessons and the principles of the Wisconsin Idea, and leaned on them through my best and worst days. The foundation I built at UW was instrumental in first how I survived, then learned, and finally thrived in the Navy. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to bring that and all I learned in the Navy back to UW, to someday serve my community in new ways. I will forever be grateful for my time in the military, and for the UW communities that taught me first and have welcomed me back with open arms.
Thank you for your time and, as always, On Wisconsin.