For more than a decade, ROTC cadets at the University of Virginia have held a 24-hour vigil each Veterans Day that concludes with a 21-gun salute to those who’ve served. This year, however, the guns of November will fall silent after the university’s president announced that the tradition is over, in part because of concerns about gun violence.
He thought he was getting used to suicides in his old infantry unit, but the latest one had hit him like a brick: Joshua Markel, a mentor from his fire team, who had seemed unshakable. In Afghanistan, Corporal Markel volunteered for extra patrols and joked during firefights. Back home Mr. Markel appeared solid: a job with a sheriff’s office, a new truck, a wife and time to hunt deer with his father. But that week, while watching football on TV with friends, he had wordlessly gone into his room, picked up a pistol and killed himself. He was 25.