As we gather this Veterans Day at the University of Colorado at Boulder to honor those men and women who answered their nation's call to duty, it comes with sadness in our hearts.

We offer our sympathies to the families of those lost and wounded in the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, last week.

We also lost one of our own at CU on Oct. 29. Tom Claiborne, of Parker, a first lieutenant in U.S. Marine Corps, was lost in a mid-air collision near San Clemente, Calif., while serving his country. First Lt. Claiborne was a popular aerospace engineering student beloved by many on campus and a 2006 Navy ROTC graduate.

Many on our campus felt his loss.

As we honor our veterans under this cloud, I am reminded that CU-Boulder has a long association with the men and women serving in our nation's armed forces.

During World War II, elite Navy Language School students learning Japanese were billeted in the building that now houses my office.

In 1947, Colorado Gov. Lee Knous decreed CU's newly planned student union as the state's official memorial to those who served and died preserving our democratic freedom. We are the keepers of the names of those Coloradans who have fallen.

The University Memorial Center opened in 1953 and today it will be the site where we will honor veterans in an 11 a.m. ceremony in the Glenn Miller Ballroom featuring Colo. Senate President Brandon Shaffer, of Longmont, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and a graduate of the CU Law School. The University of Colorado ROTC Color Guard and others will join him.

Today we have 600 ROTC students and 400 veterans studying at CU-Boulder. With the newly reformed GI Bill that took effect in August, we are expecting many more veterans to attend CU-Boulder. The Post-9/11 GI Bill covers tuition, books and a monthly housing stipend for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who attend public, in-state colleges.

We are pleased we are able to support our student veterans in their transition. Two years ago, CU-Boulder was one of the first universities in the nation to open a Veterans Affairs Office, a campus office that disappeared from our nation's campuses after the Vietnam War. Our Office of Veterans Affairs supports veterans in their passage to college.

This year there was $73,000 available on the Boulder campus for Veteran scholarships, up from $8,000 the year before and zero dollars the year before that.

Every day we should reflect on the liberties we enjoy because of the men and women of the armed forces. Twenty-three million hidden heroes walk among us, saying little and asking for less.

Know this: We have not forgotten you. We remember and honor your devotion to this great nation. Your service, past and present, calls each of us to a higher standard.

Please join me in paying homage to our veterans for all they have done. Their actions made a difference. Their dedication to duty has preserved our precious legacy of freedom and liberty in this great republic.

Philip DiStefano is chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder.