Transcript
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I'm actually named Andrew Jonas Panic.
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My uncle was Jonas Martin Panic.
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Jonas was not only my uncle, but he's my godfather.
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And throughout my life he's been a huge mentor.
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A lot of the fact being just that I have his name.
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His name means something to a lot of people.
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Whenever people hear that name, people that knew him just instantly smiled.
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I remember how much of a good dude
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he was, how humble he was, how hard working was for me.
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Like as a kid, seeing that at very young age.
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Like that name is Jonas.
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Panic is almost like a sacred name in our family, where it's something where
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instantly there's a pride and a dedication and a level of responsibility
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that I feel, and making sure that I make the name proud
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and that make him proud to the best I can by.
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I don't think the way I'm doing that is becoming a marine Corps officer
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or by being in the service, but I think more so it matters
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is the person I am and the values that I try to maintain and try.
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And I think for me,
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the biggest thing with nine over 11 is, like you said, it's very emotional time,
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but it's also just something that we remember kind of every day.
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Obviously, nine over 11 had a big role in a lot of people's lives,
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but it's something that daily we kind of have to live with and we live through.
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I never got to know my uncle.
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I turned to 19 days after 911 happened.
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So I was very young and it happened.
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But thanks to my mom, my grandparents, my family, class of 1997,
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they always were able to give me a realization of humor.
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Uncle was and give me the stories and give me those
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almost defining traits of him.
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And I think that's kind of what stands out to me most,
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is there's not one specific story I can ever really think of.
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Whenever I think of Jonas Panic, it's the concept that I hear the same story
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from all those different people, whether it was family, friends, classmates, people
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he worked with, people who he worked for, that worked for him.
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It's the same.
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He was a giant. He was humble.
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He was always emulating excellent style, showing arrogance and just actually caring
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about people around him and making him better.
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I think that's kind of what I remember most about him,
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and that's kind of what defines
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character to me is it's not one person's perception,
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but the fact that everyone members the same perception,
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the values that my uncle had, the values that the Academy has taught me that
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that the Marine Corps has.
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I've, over time, have more fem into my leadership philosophy.
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I broke down into like three simple things of be a good dude
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or do that, which I got from Navy sprint football.
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Caring about the work you do and the people to your left
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and right, and leading whatever it is you do with excellence
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without being arrogant.
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And that's something I tell all my Marines were ready to initiate.
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Counseling is like, hey, do these things and you and I'll be just okay.
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And honestly, at the end of day, if you follow those rules,
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like everything you do will fall in place.
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But whenever I was about eight years old, I came to my family,
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had to do something for one 911 Vance and we came to the Pentagon.
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And while we were here, my parents would not trip up to Annapolis
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to see the Naval Academy.
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I got a tour from the captain.
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His name is Mike.
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How big he scored. My uncles buy from Dover, Delaware down here.
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He was also an academic dean of the Naval Academy, and I was doing this
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tour in a Navy football jersey that my uncle had got me whenever I was born.
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So I remember at that point it was like, okay, this is where I have to be.
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It was something where,
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like the Naval Academy was a dream long before was ever really goal for me.
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But from that day forward, it
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almost became part of my identity and there was like no other option.
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I remember being a kid and screaming go Navy beat Army every December.
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There is no other way that sentence could come out,
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and there was nothing else that was being said during that game.
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And luckily as a kid, we were on that long win streak, so it made it really nice.
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My dad is a marine.
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My both my grandparents or my grandfather served.
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I have a lot of family that served and being the first, first born
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and first born son is kind of like a thing
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where no one pressured me into doing it, but I felt like I had to do it.
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It was just the thing I set for myself. Like, this is what I will do.
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All my contingencies.
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Fighting against Navy were some form of one of the other service academies,
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Rothesay, and then also enlisting the help to have that service.
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So no, it's definitely been very humbling, something where having my uncle's
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story and his legacy has meant something in my whole life.
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So whenever it wasn't even like a switched off of my return.
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18 oh, this is about football.
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Monaco did play football.
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Navy, but he knew that it was more than football.
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And for me,
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I knew that it was more than a degree, more than a four years of college.
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It's Ansar, not college, because for a reason
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there's a lot more that goes into it.
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And that thing is just very humbling and honoring to be able to be there on.
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I walk into the same doors as my uncle did, live in the same dorm,
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and just walk the same place.
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That's that he did, as well as so many other people that have gone on
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to do great things and, and or sacrifice their life for the country,
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the Marine Corps, that's it's it felt like home, honestly.
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I said, like my uncle is what brought me to my education of like,
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okay, I want to go to the Naval Academy to be like him.
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But at the same time, it wasn't something where
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that was my sole reason for going to Navy.
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It was I want to live by the values that he has, which gotten
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still to him, like you said, from family, from the academy, from service.
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And then same thing with my parents or my dad live by those values.
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So it was get to Navy and whenever I got there is really a kind of time for me
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if I'm out in path living and trying to make my uncle proud,
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or what I think would make him proud is was not going.
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And being a Navy intelligence officer working CNO at the Pentagon.
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But instead of just living by the same values
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and at Navy, I had a lot of amazing marine mentors playing
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sprint football, very Marine Corps heavy cadre and alumni there.
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It just always felt like home and Marines always had your back.
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Plus just the challenge of it.
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It was always the Marine Corps definitely doesn't have the phrase or slogan
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like go where the Easy branch. And that's for a reason.
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And I absolutely love that.
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I absolutely love the idea of pushing myself to the limits.
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I do know
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I have, knowing the people to my left and right are doing the exact same thing,
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the same things that brought me to want to go to the Naval Academy,
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or same things that drew me towards the Marine Corps more than the Navy.
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Nine over 11 is not what defined him.
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That was the day that we lost him. That's how we lost him.
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If they had to find him, is who he was as a person.
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The values he had, the love he had for people, the amount of care
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he had, the compassion and empathy, all those great traits,
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and making sure that, like people are seeing that in us
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to the best of our ability and making sure that
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whenever we talk about journeys, it's not about nihilism.
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Like, surely that's why he's not here
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telling the story himself or why he's not here,
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why I'm not able to sit down and play golf with him, or have dinner with him
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and ask him the tough questions.
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Personally, it's everything that he was that we tried to emulate
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and we tried to keep living with moving forward.
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I would not be here if it weren't for the class 1997 all things
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I don't think I would have gotten into.
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Maybe.
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I don't think I would have had nearly as strong as a connection.
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Sure, I got a connection from my family, but the class of seven showed me
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some of the funny stories of stuff
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that you won't hear from the sister or from the parents of.
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Oh yeah, when he was a plea, he did this or for Army, Navy Week, Air Force Week.
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We did this, we did this challenge or checked out this thing
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or that time and they went out on DTA, like all those stories are
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what really brought me to be like, oh, he was a human.
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He was me.
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It's crazy for me to think about right now.
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I am a month shy of being used that same age he was.
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It's definitely a very humbling experience in that aspect.
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But like the class of 1997, I swear they more of them know about me
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than I know them.
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And it's always been that way.
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I got whenever I got a Facebook account they were adding me
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before I was, I was having to go to my mom bake, hey, who is this last name?
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When we were uncles, classmates like, oh, okay, cool.
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Whenever I was 13 and I was like, hey, I'm getting ready to go into high school.
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If you're just, what should I be doing to make sure I can get a Navy
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cos I'm Wookie, and then Harvey or Harvey or Belarus and Rob Madden
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and so many other people were like, giving me so much advice for, hey,
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here's what you can do to try to get X, y, z kind of help guide me into,
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okay, you're playing sports, you need community service.
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These are things that are at the end of the day.
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I didn't know at the time, but they're giving me the
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at the very fundamental age,
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like these steps and the values that I need to adopt aggressively
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in order to not only get into Navy, but also to do well beyond that point.
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On top of that, whenever I commissioned, there's a lot of class of 1997
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actually donated to a fund, $19.97 to get me a marine Corps marvelous
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sword and a plaque that they presented me on commissioning day.
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So that class, I cannot express my gratitude
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like enough for them, and I truly do not think I would have gotten to where
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I was, and definitely not as easily as not.
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That was easy, but they definitely helped me out a lot.
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It's just amazing to have access to family and like the link in the chain
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is a saying to some, but it truly does mean something you truly do feel it.
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Especially me being 25 years behind the class of 1997.
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There's just so much of that camaraderie and like on site.
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You're welcome.
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Feeling that did not expect to get that.
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I just saw
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I'd never long before I ever did anything to earn their trust and eager to help.
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It was something where I had it.
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I could make a phone call, send email, ask for help, visit them.
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Person, ask for dinner.
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To this day, run into classes 97 grads and it's interesting.
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Still see my last name like five foot ten.
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Remember six six occasionally guy named Jonas Panic.
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I'm like, yes.
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And then they give me some stories.
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We sit down, we have conversation.
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It's just so amazing.
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And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have that connection.
