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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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In military-style challenge, teams race for rubber ducks

Dozens of participants raced to the White House, reenacted historic scenes of George Washington crossing the Delaware River and created a fake plan to steal the U.S. constitution: all while collecting rubber ducks and quacking at tourists.

In honor of Veterans Day on Monday, students and veterans completed a 20-mile scavenger hunt for more than a dozen rubber ducks at stops like the Washington Monument, the Supreme Court and the Naval Reserves Officers Training Corps building.

The race was designed to simulate how the military completes a mission, Michael Ruybal, the Associate Director of Military and Veteran Student Services, said.

In its second year, participants were given five months of participation and asked to collect 20 ducks – up from four last year with two weeks to prepare.

“The civilian student kind of sees what the veterans go through, what it’s like to be within that military culture to have to accomplish a mission in a very short time period,” Ruybal said.

The teams competed in honor of one student veteran, looking to win them a university survival pack, consisting of an iPad mini, school supplies, GW swag, hats, canteens, and a journal with paper made out of military uniforms.

Chelsea Murtha, a graduate student fellow at Office of Military and Veteran Student Services, spent the afternoon volunteering, helping teams to complete their task at the White House and giving them their clue to their next point.

“They alter their whole lives, they alter their families lives and they don’t get the kind of coverage that something like that really merits,” Murtha, whose father is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, said about the importance of Veteran’s Day.

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