Battaglia Hosts 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony in Delaware

By Claudette Roulo

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

NEWARK, Delaware, Sept. 12, 2014 – The senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joined the USA Basketball Women’s National Team here yesterday as they honored troops and marked the 13th anniversary of 9/11 during a game at the Bob Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware.

During a halftime ceremony hosted by Marine Corps Sgt. Major Bryan B. Battaglia and women’s team head coach Geno Auriemma, service members presented players with specially engraved dog tags. In return, the troops received USA Basketball coins.

“We hope you wear these dog tags with honor, we hope you wear them with pride, because you are part of something great. You are partnering with our United States armed forces as a representative of the … greatest country in the world,” Battaglia said during the ceremony.

Tags have special meaning

Dog tags are usually worn in matching pairs, but these tags are special, Battaglia said after the game. Instead of two identical tags, one tag was engraved with the player’s information, and the other was engraved with the presenting service member’s information.

It’s the second time Battaglia has attended such a ceremony; earlier this year he hosted a similar ceremony at the sendoff for the USA Men’s Soccer World Cup team.

During anotherevent held in New York City on Aug. 20, a group of U.S. service members led by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented military-style identification tags to Team USA men’s basketball players in Madison Square Garden during the halftime ceremony of the Team USA and Dominican Republic exhibition game. That presentation was part of the “Commitment to Service” relationship the U.S. military has with USA Basketball.

The tags are intended to serve as a reminder to the players of what they represent, Auriemma said during a press conference following the game.

“From a national team standpoint, we know what we have to do,” he said. “… We make a commitment for a short period of time. By Oct. 5, this will all be over for us. But what I think days like today do is try and instill in our players that it's never over. That once you're a part of USA Basketball -- once you make that commitment to being part of the national team -- it's never over.”

“... That's the lesson that can come through in being associated with service men and women,” the coach added.

Saluting troops’ service

It’s a lesson that the players have taken to heart as they’ve spent the week practicing at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in preparation for the 2014 FIBA World Championship for Women, said Maya Moore, a forward for the Minnesota Lynx.

“This whole week has been really, I think, humbling, to be around so many men and women [who] remind us of how much we represent,” she said. “These men and women are putting their lives on the line in training and sacrificing some of their comforts for our freedom – [that] is pretty much the motivation that any of us need to go out and work and fight and compete as hard as we can.”

The kind of commitment made by service members isn’t always given the attention it merits, Auriemma told reporters.

“... When it's Veterans Day, or when there's a special occasion, we think about the commitment in the service that they made, and we don't do it the other days,” he said.

Representing America

“We try to teach our players that it is a lifetime, 24/7, 12 months out of the year commitment. A day like today reinforces that for us,” Auriemma said. “And the exchange of dog tags and the coin that we had with the service men and women, that's so that our players know when they're overseas and they're competing for their country, that they're not alone and that they represent the people that make this country what it is. And it's as much of an emotional and symbolic gesture as it a monument to who we are.”