![\"Maj.](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Maj.-Gen.-Francis-Evon-240x300.jpg\")
\u201cWe still talk about how Jerry Lukowski, who\u2019s a lot taller than I am, put a poncho over himself, spread it out as wide as he could, and the rest of us huddled under it, trying to stay dry,\u201d Evon says.<\/p>\n
Teamwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really the crux of the ROTC program,\u201d says Evon. \u201cThere weren\u2019t any individuals that day. It was all team effort and striving toward a common goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even today, some 35 years later, now Maj. Gen. Evon, adjutant general of the Connecticut National Guard<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s right, two stars and head of the state\u2019s military might – endeavors to craft a sense of belonging, commonality, and teamwork among the ranks.<\/p>\n Back in 1985, the Army recruiting station was on the other side of the fence from Naugatuck High School, from which Evon graduated that June. He was \u201ceight of eight\u201d friends, he says, to cross that fence and sign the dotted line, interested mostly in the tuition assistance the military offers.<\/p>\n His father, Francis, was a Vietnam War vet, quiet about the time he and his own brothers spent overseas in the late 1960s and early 1970s yet determined to instill a sense of patriotism in his four children.<\/p>\n Initially, only about a month before starting at UConn, Evon admits that as the oldest of those four children, he was focused on how to pay for school and committed to the Army National Guard, knowing that as a rising sophomore the following summer he\u2019d be away at basic and then Advanced Individual Training (AIT), where he\u2019d learn to become an anti-tank gunner.<\/p>\n \u201cMy freshman year was a time to figure things out and understand what it meant to be away from home unsupervised,\u201d Evon says. \u201cI could have taken a bunch of different paths back in the mid-1980s, but the Army gave me discipline and taught me values.\u201d<\/p>\n In September 1986, the sidewalk from Towers was well-worn even then, as students walked to class in the morning and back to their dorms in the evening.<\/p>\n Walking ahead of Evon \u2013 who was fresh from a summer of training in Georgia, with a tight haircut and drill sergeant orders not to get tattoos during leave still echoing in his head \u2013 was someone his own age dressed in the classic battle dress uniform<\/a>, yet sporting \u2026 a rattail<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was the style back then, but definitely not allowed in uniform for military members.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was my introduction to ROTC,\u201d Evon says. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget meeting this kid. He ended up becoming an infantry officer, went on active duty after he graduated. But when we met, he talked to me about this ROTC hangar, in those days it was back up on the hill, and I made my way there and met with the lieutenant colonel.\u201d<\/p>\n His military science instructors were Vietnam-era like his dad, and his classmates included students like Lukowski, the cadet who shielded the team from the rain and went on to become a brigadier general, retiring as head of the Joint Staff of the Connecticut Army National Guard, and Ralph F. Hedenberg \u201989 (CLAS)<\/a>, brigadier general and assistant adjutant general for the Connecticut Army National Guard.<\/p>\n They\u2019re people, Evon says, who, even before commissioning as second lieutenants together, helped shape him and his future \u2013 alongside the person living directly below him in Trumbull House that sophomore year, the woman who eventually became his wife, Laura (Solano) Evon \u201990 (BUS).<\/p>\n He promised her that after 20 years in the Army National Guard – 240 monthly drill weekends and 40 weeks of training camp in the summer – he\u2019d retire. Then, he says, Sept. 11 happened.<\/p>\n \u201cSept. 11 was defining for the reserve component of the National Guard,\u201d Evon says. \u201cIt transformed us from a strategic reserve to the combat operational reserve of the military.\u201d<\/p>\n Evon was assigned to a unit in New London in 2001, which staged equipment at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport following the collapse of the twin towers. Patriotism was high, he says, and he wanted to find a way to make the Guard a full-time priority, leaving behind a civilian career in industrial sales and, yes, breaking his promise to Laura.<\/p>\n Progressively, he rose through the ranks as a member of the state\u2019s operational team, deploying to Afghanistan in 2009 where his fellow battalion commanders were military careerists who graduated from West Point and colonels who would become Army four-star generals.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the guy who doesn\u2019t belong,\u201d he jokes of those experiences. \u201cI could never have imagined my professional career would have gone in this direction, but it\u2019s been a great opportunity. I never thought I\u2019d be working in state service, never mind for a series of governors.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018The Army gave me discipline and taught me values\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Maj.](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Francis-Evon-pinning-300x295.jpg\")
Cultivating teamwork and \u2018selfless service\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Maj.](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Francis-Evon-and-wife-Laura-circa-late-1980s-225x300.jpg\")