Dr. Raymond Sun, an assistant professor of history at Washington State University, received an Honorary Cadet award from WSU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps on Thursday evening as part of a small ceremony to commemorate 100 years since the U.S. formally entered World War I on April 6 , 1917.
“It feels wonderful,” Sun told the Daily News after the event with the framed award in hand.
As it was being reported by national news sources that the U.S. military had launched approximately 50 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield – the first direct U.S. assault on President Bashar al-Assad’s government in six years – Sun spoke to a small audience in the WSU library atrium about what was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.”
Army ROTC member and WSU history student Ian Melendez had been organizing the event since the first of February, coordinating participants and studying the war. “It’s been a very emotional study because the war is so depressing,” Melendez said.
To him and others, World War I made America the power it is today, ending years of European dominance and leading independence movements across the globe.
He said it also paved the way for future conflicts.
“We’re fighting in the countries we are now because of World War I,” Melendez said, citing the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, often credited as creating borders in the Middle East that have resulted in conflict.