WKU ROTC Hall of Fame ceremony honors 2 alumni

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Two WKU veterans were honored Monday with inductions into the WKU ROTC Hall of Fame.

“Focus on the principles of truth. You shall know the truth… the truth is in you… the truth is in each one of us,” Col. Taylor Chasteen, one of the inductees in this year’s class for the program, says.

ROTC director Anthony Struzik shared the importance of this ceremony for his program.

“We encourage them to kind of look at these plaques and get their story a little bit deeper understanding of what the gold standard is for alumni, you will graduate from here and go serve your country for four years, 16 years, 20 years, whatever it’s going to be, and that’s great. But there’s not always that. Not everybody makes the Hall of Fame,” he says.

Chasteen spoke on how his time in the ROTC shaped him for his future.

“The WKU ROTC program became the door that I walked through to experience the world. This university and ROTC enabled me to experience different cultures, forms of government, armed conflict,” he says.

Joining him is Capt. Ralph Shrewsbury, who passed away back in 1998 but was a key part in helping the U.S. win World War II.

Shrewsbury took part in the D-Day operations in 1944 and helped identify many prisoners of war from his state.

“I came across a newspaper article in the Bowling Green paper, and it said ‘Lieutenant Ralph Shrewsberry has escaped from German captivity and rejoins his unit. He’s an ROTC alumni, the class of 1942, at Western Kentucky State Techers College,” Major Tyler Reid, an alumni of the program, says.

Ralph’s grandson, Kyle, spoke on his impact to the family and community he served, which Reid reiterates.

“His final awards included Combat Infantry Badge, Infantrymen Badge, Silver Star, Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal, but it’s not just what he did on the battlefield that makes him a shining example for that, it’s what he did with his life afterwards,” he says.