Honor Flight Syracuse is an organization that flies approximately 80 veterans several times a year to Washington, D.C., to visit the monuments dedicated to their service. The veterans’ return to Syracuse is celebrated with a ceremony in their honor. On April 27, Visiting Professor of History and Brigadier General (retired) Ty Seidule hosted the program.
“Serving as host of an Honor Flight celebration was indeed a great honor for me,” said Seidule. “Recognizing and expressing gratitude toward the 82 participating veterans was a profound experience.” A program highlighting the day’s activities will air on WCNY Public Media on May 18.
Continuing to commemorate veterans, Seidule will be the speaker at the National Park Service Memorial Day celebration at Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on May 27.
Throughout the semester, Seidule spoke and was interviewed frequently about his book, Robert E. Lee and Me. But other speaking engagements also filled his calendar. He remained a frequent guest on WCNY’s “Ivory Tower” program, broadcast throughout Central New York. On April 19, in a special hour-long episode recorded at Colgate University, he addressed police shootings, news bias, the Biden economy and the crisis in the Middle East with other panelists. When “Ivory Tower” came to Hamilton on March 1, Seidule joined in discussions of DEI, IVF, Sanctuary Cities, and Military Enrollment.
He also participated in a Connecticut Public Media program, intriguingly titled “How to Be Wrong,” on March 20. Seidule recounted his rather dramatic shift in perspective from regarding Robert E. Lee as being above Jesus in significance to recognizing him as a traitor to his country. In another public media interview, he commented for an NPR “Politics” story titled “West Point axed 'duty, honor, country' from its mission statement. Conservatives fumed,” saying that the change was “a complete non-issue.”
Following on the heels of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in 2023, Seidule was the 2024 Resident Scholar of the Park School in Baltimore in February. He shared his story about how and why his beliefs radically changed from childhood to the present. He led two different student sessions, A Monumental Issue: The Problem of Confederate Monuments and Common Ground: Civil Disagreement, Free Speech and Bipartisanship on Campus and in Politics.
Seidule spoke with The American Leader, a non-profit organization that “offers historical storylines and problem briefs to home in on what’s really happening beneath the surface of today’s headlines,” according to its website. The organization “profiles leaders from across the country who have a vision and are motivated to solve a problem and make their communities stronger.” In “Dismantling the Cause,” Seidule talked about setting the record straight about the politics around slavery that led to secession and the Civil War and the importance of word choice in conveying the truth about an issue, among other issues.
The list of media and community engagements in which Seidule engaged this semester is a lengthy one, too long to describe individually. They range from a feature article in the Baptist News Global to a presentation for the Jessie Ball Dupont Fund in Jacksonville, Fla, to a WAMC Public Media interview discussing Common Ground and the Naming Commission presentation on campus.
