This past Veterans Day at the Seattle Film Institute, we had the distinct honor and privilege to dedicate a podcast to our own Veterans studying film at SFI. Veterans make up a significant portion of our student body and SFI is proud to facilitate the track of learning many of them take to pursue their academic and or career goals. Thomas Mason and James King were gracious enough to spend some of their time talking with us and sharing both the challenges and difficulties of being a Veteran, serving in the military and acclimating into everyday life and society, while trying to graduate from SFI.
Having spoken with Thomas Mason and James King, they similarly echoed this sentiment. They were proud to serve in the military. They were not looking for accolades, recognition or to be revered. Rather, they considered their work to be hard, challenging but necessary and they are proud to have served. We spoke about our society and culture paying them lip service by proclaiming to support the troops, but often Veterans in our country were disregarded by our society and left behind to accept a tough reality, inhibited by ailments they suffered as a result of fighting for our country in war.
I am proud to know both of these extraordinary men and proud to be in a family with multiple service members who dutifully served their country. I hope this view is reflected in our conversation and podcast with these two incredible men.