Trinity alum to speak at Veterans Day assembly
Washington native and 2002 Trinity alumnus Damon “DJ” Faldowski will be the featured speaker at Washington High School’s Veterans Day community assembly at 2 p.m. Monday.
Principal Chet Henderson said the program is for students, but the community, especially veterans, are invited to attend.
Washington-area veterans are also invited to a 1 p.m. luncheon at the high school before the assembly. Those who plan to attend the lunch are asked to call the high school office today to reserve their spot.
Faldowski was a senior at Trinity when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. He applied to the U.S. Naval Academy where he majored in economics and was a four-year varsity baseball player. He began his journey of becoming a Navy SEAL. He has been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia and has won numerous awards, including the Bronze Star Medal with Combat Valor, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the NATO Medal.
While on active duty, he recognized a troubling pattern for Gold Star families, that they initially received abundant support, but it waned over the years. In collaboration with his brother, Mark Faldowski, and other veterans, he helped start Legacies Alive, a nonprofit organization with a mission to support Gold Star Families and honor those heroes who gave their lives.
In 2015, Faldowski left active duty to pursue joint master’s degrees in public administration and business administration from Harvard University and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with both degrees in 2018 and with honors from Wharton. He was a Pat Tillman Scholar and was named a Zuckerman Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. He currently works as an investment professional in New York and is passionate about becoming a servant-leader across the public, non-profit, and private sectors.
Faldowski currently resides in New Jersey with his wife, daughter and son. He is the son of former Washington County Judge Damon J. Faldowski and the late Roberta Abel Faldowski.