NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Retired U.S. Marine four-star Gen. Jim Mattis saluted the work of the Middle Tennessee State University Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center in helping veterans graduate from college and launch fulfilling careers.

Speaking to a crowd of nearly 300 people — many of them veterans — during a breakfast fundraiser for the Daniels Center Thursday, Oct. 10, at the Hutton Hotel in Nashville, Mattis, who lives in Washington state, said “we need to make sure there’s something like the veterans center that’s a model (for other universities to follow) and a welcoming place.”

A captive audience was treated to a one-hour conversation between longtime friends Mattis, a former U.S. secretary of defense, and Bill Frist, a former Republican U.S. senator, senate majority leader and heart surgeon from Nashville.

Video from he full event, including remarks by retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith M.  Huber, MTSU’s senior adviser for veterans and leadership initiatives, the Mattis-Frist conversation, emcee and MTSU alumnus Steve Smith and others is available at https://youtu.be/HiIiZO2etkI.

Businesspeople from around the Midstate helped raise more than $400,000 for the center, event organizers said. This included $50,000 each from primary sponsors CoreCivic Foundation and the Tennessee Valley Authority, $30,000 from BNA/Nashville International Airport and $25,000 from Baker Group Strategies and Haury & Smith Contractors. 

Mattis, who served as secretary of defense under former President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019 before resigning, touched on military and U.S. history, war between Russia and Ukraine, U.S. allies, NATO, the axis of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran and much more.

“Two years ago, I would say our No. 1 challenge is China and make certain terrorists are kept at arm’s length and don’t pull off what they did on 9/11 again,” Mattis said of the attacks on U.S. landmarks in 2001.

“Today, looking at the external threat, I would characterize it somewhat differently,” he added. “It’s an axis of autocrats. It’s China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. These countries are united. We don’t want to exaggerate how much they work together. We cannot dismiss it either.

“They all believe the West, in general — the democracies, and the United States in particular and they point to Jan. 6 (2021) and other events — that we’re on irretrievable decline, that we’re going under. Now’s the time (for them) to get brave. Now’s the time to work against the American-led international order that prizes peace, prosperity for all, the rule of law, this sort of thing.”

In one response, Mattis mentioned MTSU alumnus Jay Strobino, a U.S. Army soldier wounded 13 times in February 2006 during a gunfight with the enemy. He later received a Purple Heart and Silver Star for his heroism.

Strobino, now a field representative for U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, addressed the audience, saying “this is an honor of a lifetime.” With Huber’s help, Strobino reentered college and graduated one semester later. “No organization in America does more to help student veterans than the Daniels Center.”

President Sidney A. McPhee, Provost Mark Byrnes, Vice Presidents Joe Bales and Andrew Oppmann, women’s basketball coach Rick Insell, baseball coach Jerry Myers and Beth Harwell, MTSU Distinguished Visiting Professor and former state representative and speaker of the house, led MTSU’s delegation.

Recording industry adjunct professor Jamie Teachenor, who wrote the U.S. Space Force theme song, sang the national anthem.

The Daniels Center, located in Rooms 124 and 316 in Keathley University Center, is home to more than 1,100 student-veterans and family members. It is a one-stop-shop to receive assistance. To learn more, call 615-904-8347 or visit https://www.mtsu.edu/military/.

— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)