Commencement speaker felt ‘part of UD family’

Jeff Shaara: “Every one of us has the ability to do something, to accomplish great things, to leave a legacy.”

10:52 a.m., June 30, 2005--Jeff Shaara, the noted historical novelist who delivered the University of Delaware Commencement address on May 28, reports that the event has left a lasting impression and one that is quite positive.

Although Shaara has traveled extensively, addressed national conventions and Civil War round tables and met with governors, senators, generals, admirals and entertainment industry leaders, he wrote to UD President David P. Roselle that “not one of these experiences compares to the impact your Commencement made on me.”

When first invited to be the speaker, Shaara wrote, he was “intimidated by the very prospect of facing so many people on a day that would rank as one of the most significant of their lives.”

However, he added, “By the end of the ceremony, I was a part of that experience. I cannot measure what impact, if any, that my words may have had. But I can promise you, the impact of that event on me is something I will remember for the rest of my life.”

Shaara wrote that the “hospitality and graciousness” extended to him by the UD community “did much to make me feel that, for a brief time, I was a part of the University of Delaware family.”

Historical novelist Jeff Shaara signs copies of his book, ‘Gods and Generals,’ for students at the UD Bookstore the day before Commencement.

At Commencement, Shaara told graduates that each has the means to change the world and cited as examples a number of historical figures who rose to prominence from modest circumstances. “If you understand nothing else about your future,” Shaara told the Class of 2005, “understand that you are blessed with opportunity. You have already accomplished something formidable in completing a college education. You must leave here today with a sense of confidence, and it is not simply a cliché to say that every one of you is important and that any one of you might change history.”

Shaara is the son of Michael Shaara, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War novel The Killer Angels, which focuses on the battle of Gettysburg. Following his father’s death in 1998, Shaara, in turn, wrote Gods and Generals, a prequel to The Killer Angels, and then The Last Full Measure, a sequel to that book.

Shaara’s most recent book, To the Last Man, published last year, is a World War I novel that has received praise from Gen. Tommy Franks, Gen. Wesley Clark and Steve Forbes, who said that it “cements his reputation as a war writer of Tolstoyan or Homeric dimensions.” Shaara is now at work on the first volume in a trilogy about World War II.

His novels have been praised for their attention to factual details of the historical events and eras described, as well as for the development of emotional ties between the reader and the characters.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and Greg Drew

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