THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
PAGE 7
MILITARY
Veteran to return to study at KU after deployment
SARA SNEATH
ssneath@kansan.com
Currently deployed to Afghanistan, Zach Hertzel, a junior from Lawrence, works as a flight medic for the Kansas Army National Guard. His daily routine consists of waking up to ready a Black Hawk, a kind of helicopter that is used like an air ambulance, which he flies to transport U. S. casualties to the hospital.
Last semester, while enrolled in 18 credit hours, Hertzel spent several nights a week in Salina logging hours of flight training for this deployment, but that didn't stop him from keeping his resume-worthy G.P.A. at the University of Kansas.
Veteran's Day — celebrated on Nov. 11 — is a national holiday to recognize all military veterans who have served or, like Hertzel, continue to serve. There are currently about 360 KU student veterans receiving veteran education benefits, according to the KU office of Veterans Services. Two of these students are currently deployed; Hertzel is one of them.
Hertzel joined the Army National Guard in October 2007. A Lawrence native, his desire to be an Army
medic began at an early age.
"Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to be a medic. My grandpa told me about the medic who saved his life in Vietnam." Hertzel said.
However, his wife, Laura, said Zach's path was not as clear as he leads on.
"His mom told me when he was growing up, he hated needles and heights," Laura said. "They thought it was pretty ironic that he became a flight medic."
Zach and Laura got married last July, after meeting three years ago at a gym where Zach was a personal trainer.
"My dad wanted me to sign up for a gym membership," Laura said. "One of the things that they sold at the gym was two free sessions with a trainer. Well, for whatever reason, I ended up taking the sessions. Zach trained me for two months and ended up asking me out after that."
Zach and Laura have an 11-week-old baby boy, Calidan. Zach was present for the birth, but left for deployment three days after. Laura said she takes Calidan's footprint every month and sends it to Zach.
"I never really thought either way about marrying someone in the military." Laura said. "When I met him
Admittedly, Hertzel's story sounds like something off an Army recruiting commercial. He has the fast-paced job, the G.P.A., and a newborn baby boy to boot. Hertzel attributes his success last semester to understanding TAs and professors, who allowed him to make up work outside of classroom hours, especially the TA for his human anatomy lab, Kin Chan.
and found out he was in the Army, it was just another aspect that I liked and admired."
The professor of Hertzel's anatomy class, Dr. David McLead, said Hertzel always came in to his office hours to study.
"I would miss that class all the time because I would be doing night flights in Salina. He was great. He knew his stuff, and he'd always stay late with me," Hertzel said.
"Zach was a great student," he said. "Personable, motivated and hard working."
Hertzel said the help he received from this class has extended beyond the semester.
"Human Anatomy Observation Lab helped me out a lot," Hertzel said. "As a flight medic, it can be very traumatic at times. We deal with a lot of amputations. This class
Garrett Moe, a senior from Newton, met Zach four years ago on the KU rowing team and served with him in the Army ROTC. Moe said Hertzel has made him a more determined person.
gave me great knowledge of where things should be and where things shouldn't be."
In 2008, Moe spent a six-month deployment working at Guantanamo Bay. He said the transition from active duty to college was difficult.
"When you get back to civilian side, you have to seek out information," Moe said. "It doesn't jump at you like on the military side. Not wearing my uniform everyday was different. My fiancé had to teach me how to dress."
"I saw him doing all that stuff and I didn't see why I couldn't do it too," Moe said.
Although Moe will not be at KU for Zach's return — he leaves in May for military flight school — he had advice for those welcoming veterans back from deployment.
"I would just say be there," Moe said. "Let them know that you're there."
Zach Hertzel, a junior from Lawrence serves in the Kansas Army National Guard. Hertzel is one of the 360 veterans here receiving Veteran Education Benefits.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Edited by Nikki Wentling
MUSIC
'Taking Back Mondays' involves crowd
IDYLAN LYSEN
"It started out playing mostly metal," Brabender said. "As a band, we started to think about all the songs we wanted to cover, and it went back to not only metal, but to what we listened to in junior high school—punk and emo."
dlysen@kansan.com
Late on a Monday night, the streets are empty in downtown Lawrence, but the fast-paced beat and nonstop lyrics of the punk rock song "Devotion and Desire" blare from The Bottleneck, a bar at 737 New Hampshire Street.
But Bayside, the New York band that made the song famous, isn't performed. Instead, Lawrence punk rock band Sovereign States (formerly known as My Brother, The Vulture) is performing its weekly punk karaoke show, "Taking Back Mondays."
With a new genre of music being covered came a new name to the event, changing from Metal Mondays to Taking Back Mondays this past month. Brabender said that
Since early summer, Sovereign States — vocalist Alec Hernandez, guitarists Cameron Birdsall and Jon Marzette, bassist Brett Crawford, and drummer Quinn Brabender — perform most Monday nights at The Bottleneck. The band isn't playing its original music, but covering pop-punk and emo songs that fans request to sing along to. The band focuses on playing songs of the pop-punk genre that were popular when they were in high school, including songs by Bayside, Fall Out Boy, Sum 41 and Taking Back Sunday, which is where the name of the event comes from.
Sovereign States drummer Quinn Brabender said that Taking Back Mondays originally started as Metal Mondays. The idea was to cover metal songs and get people to come hang out on a Monday night, which is generally a slow night for the bar scene.
since changing the name, more fans have shown up to the event.
During the event, fans that come to hear their favorite songs are encouraged to get on stage and sing along, as if Sovereign States was their own personal band.
"When we play live, we like to have people on stage and sing along with us," guitarist Jon Marzette said. "There will be, like, 30 people on stage with us instead of us just playing at people."
The band said they learned about 40 songs. The event has a Facebook page where fans can request songs for the band to learn and then play at the event for the fans to sing along to.
ment thing." Brabender said. "I think that's why people have so much fun, because they can get on stage. And if they do know the songs, they don't have to sing by themselves."
"It's definitely a group involve-
Ben Goodrich, a senior from Texas, said he came to the second Taking Back Mondays and came back because of the nostalgia, noting that he thought it may seem embarrassing to remember the lyrics to the songs, but he had to go on stage and belt it out.
"It's a good time," Goodrich said. "You get to hear all your old jams from when you were in eighth grade when you were all ansty. Why not bring back that ol' pre-teen angst?"
ACADEMICS
Conference draws in perspective architects
KU architecture students are not just working to construct buildings; they're building their program. In Kansas City, the University and its architecture program welcomed nearly 300 architecture students from 13 states on Nov. 2 to Nov. 4 for the 2012 American Institute of Architecture Students Midwest Quad Conference. The conference showed the area's diverse architecture and the University's recently top-ranked graduate program by Midwest architecture firms.
"Because of the conference, students are more inclined to choose the University for their post-secondary
education," said D'Andre Curtis, a graduate student from Detroit, Michigan.
The three-day event included tours of Kansas City architecture firms, a masquerade ball with professionals in the field and a tour of the program's Studio 804 run by professor Dan Rockhill. Rockhill's studio at the University allows architecture students to design actual houses as part of their coursework.
Patrick Bayer, president of the KU AIAS chapter, worked with 12 of his staff members for more than a year to prepare for the conference.
Bayer said.
— Edited by Megan Hinman
"It let everybody know there are innovative things happening in Kansas within the field of architecture."
Rachel Keeven, a senior from O'Fallon, Mo., gained greater insight into the field by partaking in the conference. Despite living in the Midwest, she learned Kansas City not only has several architecture firms but also great architecture to appreciate. And after next year, she hopes to have completed her master's degree in the program and enter the workforce.
"I love that we have great faculty that knows how to motivate us to figure out who we are as individual designers," Keeven said.
-Marshall Schmidt
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