BROTHER BRANDON FLOWERS’ INSPIRING MISSION TRIP TO GHANA

Flowers and two two Arizona medical students doing clinical rotations in the district hospital

After talking with Brandon Flowers for an hour, it is no surprise the junior at Arizona State University encapsulates the Phi Kappa Theta mission of passionately serving. With an enthusiasm for international health and wellness, Flowers intends to graduate with a Business and Healthcare Management and Biology degree to pursue his passions.

 “I want to help other physicians and other medical staff during an emergency crisis, or help healthcare systems, whether in government or private care, “explained Flowers. “I want to do more than a clinical role in medicine.”

 Flowers returned from a mission trip back in August of 2019 after spending eight months in the West African nation of Ghana teaching in a local orphanage. While in Ghana, Flowers continued his studies at ASU, taking 22 credits online. This trip was Flowers' second trip to Ghana. His first trip was back in 2018, where he did clinical rotations alongside medical students in Shai-Osoduku District Hospital and learned alongside an American physician who is still practicing full time in Ghana. Flowers' passion is the medical field and his first trip allowed him to explore this passion further and established a longing to continue rural healthcare services to those in need. Flowers felt his first trip sparked his finding his purpose in his life.

 “The biggest mistake we can do in our lives is not give it purpose,” Flowers said. “Having a purpose in life brings a service to people.”

Flowers assisting with a village medical screening

 Flowers anticipated his second trip to Ghana, as he knew he wanted to continue to bring service to those in need, but he did not go to explore his passion for medicine. He was called to leave in January to help teach in a local orphanage. Teaching was not a top priority for Flowers, but his time in Ghana challenged him and exposed him to issues that needed to be solved. He gained an appreciation for serving people and filling needs no matter if those needs were in the medical field or elsewhere.

 “The second trip gave me an opportunity to impact the kids, but also allowed me to learn from the doctors. It ended up becoming something that challenged me and exposed me to things that needed to be done,” he said.

 Flowers spent his time in a village nearly two hours outside the main city, which he explored whenever he could. He frequented the local area, where most foreigners would not venture. He also ate the local food and traveled by public transportation which, in most cases, meant riding in a hollowed-out van. By exploring uncharted territory, Flowers forced himself to become immersed in the culture and began to love Ghana as a second home.

 “I would love to live in a country like Ghana,” he revealed. “I really love their world.”

 For many individuals, the thought of exploring a third world country or stepping out of their comfort zone to help those in need is intimidating. Barriers such as fear and financial constraints can hinder an individual from taking a leap faith. When asked what advice Flowers had for his fellow Phi Kappa Theta brothers, Flowers explained, “I think pretty strongly that first, if it is something as a matter of finances, God will provide. For brothers, there is no better time to go than now. Ghana is a big cultural shock. The kind of help I did there and the people I helped can be found a mile from me now. That should not be taken lightly as it is the mission of Phi Kappa Theta. Ultimately, there is no cost of learning something new and what I gained is so much higher than doing what is comfortable. Having a purpose in life brings a service to people. You are doing a disservice to yourself by not jumping on opportunities that are given to you.”

 He encourages his brothers to take the leap of faith and when opportunities arise. Flowers grabs each opportunity given to him and extends those gateways to others. His desire to help those in need spread to the development of Gravity, a brand established to support and promote local nonprofits by providing buyers with trendy and quality products. Flowers and Joseph Bradley, a current Phi Kappa Theta at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, co-founded Gravity in their sophomore year of college. While their startup is in the early stages of growth, the timing provides Flowers the opportunity to travel to Ghana again and work with Bradley to revamp the online store. Their goal for Gravity is to allow student graphic designers to create products that a selected nonprofit could then promote. The proceeds from Gravity’s products would then benefit the nonprofit.

 “We want it to bring focus to the nonprofit through a single base while bringing awareness to these nonprofits,” said Flowers of Gravity. 

Flowers with two children from the children’s home where he volunteered and a local staff member

 Flowers continues to attend ASU and investigate his passion for rural medicine and nonprofits. He is currently the Vice President of Spiritual Development for the Arizona Alpha Zeta chapter. His time with the chapter's executive board has granted him opportunities to become more involved in the Fraternity.

 While thinking about Phi Kappa Theta’s mission to inspire men to passionately serve society, Fraternity and God, Flowers said he is grateful for the brotherhood and their encouragement during his mission trips.

 “When I came back from Ghana, I was welcomed in,” he said. “Guys were open to being emotional, and that comes from being more involved with the fraternity and getting to know your brothers deeper.”

 During his most recent trip to Ghana, Flowers was considered an "inactive member" on the chapter's roster, but his brothers insisted he stay involved as much as he could.

 “It was healthier for me to stay involved with my brothers while in Ghana because they were my support system,” he shared. “One of the greatest things about Phi Kappa Theta is the organization is full of men with heart. There is a lot of encouragement in that. Our Fraternity breathes the kind of man to encourage others to go out and be of service to others.”

Postcards From A Postgraduate

Brother Jesse Greaves Explores the USA and the World

by Kathy Jonas
Indiana University, ‘78

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Jesse, fifth from top right, with his Chapter back in 2015.

As an astronautical engineer, Jesse Greaves (RPI, ‘18) will be focused on the space above, but the last few years have given him the opportunity to appreciate the ground below.

Realizing he might not have a break for quite a long time, the recent graduate of Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, embarked on a journey that would take him across the United States and Europe prior to classes starting at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he is working on a Ph.D. Eventually he wants to work for a large space company and then become a professor.

In December, after completing a co-op at the MIT Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, he flew out to Los Angeles to visit a friend who was working at a NASA jet propulsion lab, and they started a road trip across the United States. The two of them would later go on to backpack across Europe following graduation.

“I traveled some as a kid, but this was so much fun,” says Greaves. “Seeing new cultures and experiencing new landscapes are awe inspiring.”

As a collegiate brother, Greaves said he joined the fraternity in his sophomore year after leaving the lacrosse team. He says the team did not provide the exploration and variety he was looking for in college in order to expand his horizons. The fraternity provided those opportunities.

At Phi Kappa Theta, he became the Chapter’s scholarship chair and then served as Vice President of Operations, maintaining the house by waxing floors, painting and making sure the property was kept in good shape. “It was a stressful year of my life, but the house gave so much to me; I had to give back to the house.” Through a brother, he was able to apply for the internship at the Lincoln Lab.

“I fit in with Phi Kap because it was the friendliest, most personable place,” he says. “We support each other. No matter what anyone gets into, we have each other’s back.”

As someone who skied before he walked, Greaves, 23, enjoys hiking, ice climbing, white water rafting, rock climbing and photography, so travel was a natural thing for him.

A few of Jesse’s travel tips (he has a lot more):

• Watch a sunset in Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah, which Greaves says is more impressive than the Grand Canyon with canyon after canyon after canyon created by the Colorado River. Sunset at Zion National Park in Utah is also gorgeous

• Go to the WWII Museum in New Orleans

• Drink real absinthe in Barcelona. The strong, licorice-tasting drink is sipped after putting cubes of sugar on a fork, squirting water on the sugar to dissolve it in the drink and partaking in the famous concoction as did Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh

• Try to find the hidden architectural pieces in Prague, a city that Greaves found surprisingly vibrant and exciting

• Listen to Mozart in a small church in Vienna

• Go ahead and indulge in the pasta and pizza in Italy and Rome in particular. It’s a nice ubiquitous, inexpensive treat following a visit to the Vatican and the spectacular St. Peter’s Basilica, which he called the most awe-inspiring cathedral, with Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia Basilica (slated to be finished in 2026 after 144 years in the making) the most artistic and impressive

• Cliff diving in Naples on the Amalfi Coast. What better way to end a trip?

Main Image: Brother Jesse Greaves (RPI, ‘18) enjoying the view of Prague in the Czech Republic.

The Long Road Home

Remains of Phi Kap Fighter Pilot Laid To Rest After Fifty Years

by Gene Ney
Slippery Rock University, ‘90

U.S. Air Force pilot David T. Dinan III (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘65).

It was on St. Patrick’s Day of 1969 that David Thomas Dinan, III (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘65) lost his life serving our country in the Vietnam war. A native of Nutley, New Jersey, David was born in January of 1944. He was educated and graduated from Seton Hall Prep in 1961. According to his brother Charles, who currently resides in McMurray, Pennsylvania, “he was both athletic and intelligent.” David excelled in science, and, following his graduation from Seton Hall Prep, he applied and was accepted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at M.I.T., he majored in Physics.

As a young student at M.I.T., David attended a rush event at the Phi Kappa Theta chapter on his campus which was chartered in 1919. According to one of his brothers, Frank Russo ‘64, “Dave was a quiet, thoughtful, solid, sober, devout young Catholic man, perhaps more so than the rest of us.” An outstanding student, and a loyal brother, David graduated from M.I.T. and enlisted in the Air Force in 1966.

Just as he had excelled in school, athletics and the fraternity, David quickly rose within the ranks of the Air Force. He became a First Lieutenant and was awarded two medals. Those medals were the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Purple Heart for injuries he suffered serving our country. He was a member of the 34th Tactical Fighting Squadron.

On that very fateful day, March 17, 1969, David and another pilot were on a mission flying over northern Laos. His F-105 had been hit by an enemy attack, and he radioed in a distress message. To avoid a crash, he ejected himself from the plane with his parachute which landed in trees in a remote area. Unfortunately, the parachute tore on tree limbs and David tragically dropped to his death on the jungle floor. His plane subsequently crashed and burned.

A search and rescue team arrived, found the wreckage, the parachute and David’s remains, but had to evacuate given enemy fire. Unfortunately, neither David’s body, or any of the debris from the wreckage were ever recovered. As a man of 25, who was engaged to be married, this was an extremely tragic way to die. According to his brother Charles, “We anticipated his remains to be returned a week or two after he went down,” but that never happened.

Retired Col. Ed Sykes, one of David’s roommates at the Korat Royal Air Force Base in Thailand, and David’s biological brothers began lobbying for his remains to be located and returned for proper burial. Through their efforts and those of Leland Sorenson, who was a member of the original search and rescue mission who had identified the remains back in 1969, the group returned to Laos in March of 2014, 45 years after David’s plane crashed and burned. On the third day of their mission near Ban Khap in the Xiangkoang Province, they discovered David’s plastic identification card. In June of 2016, an excavating crew was sent to the area where they collected his remains which were positively identified on August 7, 2017.

David’s remains were flown from Laos to Hawaii, and then to Washington, D.C., where he was interred in Arlington National Cemetery on April 25th of this year. David was one of 600 Americans who disappeared or were lost during the Vietnam War in Laos. A total of 1,597 Americans are still unaccounted for from that war.

According to Frank Russo ’64, “When I heard that David had been killed over there, my initial reaction was of great sadness, that such a good and gentle soul, with so many gifts, should have been lost in such a place.” David now rests in peace at Arlington National Cemetery with many other Phi Kaps including our late President, John F. Kennedy.

Main Image: Above: The remains of U.S. Air Force pilot David T. Dinan III (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘65), of Nutley, killed in the Vietnam War, proceed through Arlington National Cemetery on April 25, 2018.

A Part of Something Bigger

Brother Ali Soufan Receives Phi Kappa Theta’s 2018 John F. Kennedy Award

by Matthew R. Miller
University of Nebraska, ‘12

Brother Ali Soufan (Mansfield University, ‘94) during a Q&A at IMPACT18 in Orlando, FL ).

Ali Soufan (Mansfield University, ‘94) applied to the FBI on a dare.

“When I joined the Bureau I didn’t think in a million years I’d be an FBI agent,” he said. “Literally it was a bet with fraternity brothers. Most of the guys in my fraternity were in law enforcement and ROTC. It was a joke to see if I would last in the application process. Actually I bet against myself.”

But Soufan did last. Over the next decade he was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases around the world and has been described as the person who came closest to preventing the attacks of September 11, 2001. He has published two books, Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State and The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda. A recent Hulu miniseries, The Looming Tower, is based on his time in the FBI. Soufan is now CEO of The Soufan Group and founder of The Soufan Center – a “nonprofit organization dedicated to serving as a resource and forum for research, analysis, and strategic dialogue related to global security issues and emergent threats.”

Mr. Soufan is also the most recent recipient of Phi Kappa Theta’s John F. Kennedy Award – given to brothers who have thrived in their professional careers and who inspire others to live lives of service of others, improving the world around them.

In his acceptance speech Soufan noted John F. Kennedy once said leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. Soufan explained leadership isn’t about words and lectures but about action and attitude. Those actions and attitudes are themselves shaped by our experiences and our values – which is why his time in Phi Kappa Theta was so valuable.

“When I joined Phi Kaps, like I think most of you, I joined for the fun, for the parties, but then I realized it was way more than that,” he said. “It meant something to me to be something bigger than I am, and I’m very honored for that and will always be honored to be a brother of Phi Kappa Theta.”

The values he first felt full force in college – loyalty, trust, sacrifice friendship were things he said were vital to his work in counter-terrorism and the FBI.

“Many of my colleagues who were with me in places like Yemen and Afghanistan, the streets of the Middle East or north Africa, a lot of these guys we developed our own kind of brotherhood but it’s all based on my experience that I had before in college.”

Soufan believes many people today still see that stereotypical fraternity life of parties and mindless fun, but a deeper, honest look reveals the values Phi Kappa Theta possesses, values that can and will stay with a person forever if they take them seriously.

That’s a theme Soufan keeps returning to – the time a young man spends in college does not exist in isolation from the rest of his life. Phi Kappa Theta was so important for Soufan and can be for others because it’s a framework during a foundational time. The choices made, values acquired, the people one allows themselves to be shaped by, are all building towards a future life.

“The values of loyalty, friendship, courage, fortitude, love, faith - these things nobody can take away from you,” he said. “These things won’t stop the moment you graduate and you leave for real life. These values will continue with you. They continued with me through my professional life… These values are the true test of brotherhood and these values are the true test of leadership and these things will continue with us forever.”

Soufan said Phi Kappa Theta made his college experience far richer than it otherwise would have been. He was shaped, and continues to be shaped, by his college and especially his fraternal experience. It’s taken him where he is today and has given him the foundation to persevere when he needed to the most.

“If you have the brotherhood and the loyalty and sacrifice and you put them with these other values, I think you’ll be on a very strong personal and moral ground to fight and stand up against any difficulties in life,” he said.

Main Image: The 2018 John F. Kennedy Award recipient, Brother Ali Soufan (Mansfield University, ‘94), speaking with brothers at IMPACT18 in Orlando, FL this past August.

Watch Brother Soufan’s speech from IMPACT18 in Orlando, FL: