This week, as per usual, James Hagerty was at his post as the Edgartown town administrator. But on Wednesday, Mr. Hagerty, who served two tours in Iraq with the Marines, will be in Ocean Park with his family and fellow veterans to honor Veterans Day.

The ceremony begins at 11 a.m.

Then on Friday Mr. Hagerty packs his bags and travels to Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Mich., which he does once a month as a Major in the Marine Corps Reserves. Once a year, he also travels the world on two-week training evolutions. He said the goal of the training evolutions is to stay ready should a reserve unit be called into action.

“It’s been a great experience,” he said of his national guard duties. “It gives me my kind of reset period and a good, ample dose of the Marine Corps. It lets me still see what’s going on and I think it’s important to pursue the continued service aspect.”

It also helps him in his job as town administrator, he said, in particular at the present moment as he helps the town and Island deal with the coronavirus epidemic.

Mr. Hagerty became the Edgartown town administrator in 2018. — Ray Ewing

“No one had the pandemic playbook or Op order sitting on the desk so I tried to implement what I learned at exhibition and warfare school,” Mr. Hagerty said. “I tried to look at it based on a lens of a military plan where everything is deliberate, all the factors are laid out and try to implement it. And I think we did a good job. More importantly, the people who work for the town did a good job because you can have the best plan in the world but if you can’t execute your plan and the people beneath you can’t execute your plan, you have a bad plan.”

As a veteran, town administrator, former Oak Bluffs police officer, husband and father, Mr. Hagerty has worn and still wears many hats on the Vineyard. His family’s Island roots go back to the days before Aquinnah had electricity.

Mr. Hagerty was born in 1983 to Bob Hagerty and Barry Nevin. He went to the Edgartown School and graduated from the regional high school in 2001, where he played linebacker on two undefeated state super bowl championship teams in 1997 and 1999.

He earned degrees in criminal justice and finance from Northeastern University, and then joined the marines.

“I had no idea what I was getting into when I joined the Marine Corps,” he said. “I was 21 years old and said to myself I was intrigued by the challenge. I thought the service aspect was important and I also wanted to test myself and see what I was made of.”

He headed to officer candidate school in Quantico, Va., and then in March 2007 he touched down for his first tour in Fallujah, Iraq.

“I think being a platoon commander in Iraq taught me a lot about the world and taught me a lot about people. I think even more importantly it taught me a lot about myself. Those were very formative years in my life.”

“The people I served with were from all walks of life, all across the country, all different national origins, different religions,” he continued.

After seven months in Iraq, Mr. Hagerty was back stateside for five months before volunteering to go back on an advisory mission with 15 other marines to coach, train and mentor the Iraqi army. Mr. Hagerty and his fellow marines lived and traveled with the Iraqi army from Fallujah to Karma to Baqubah over the course of a year.

“There were meetings every day, interpreters, diplomatic back and forths where there’s language barriers, cultural barriers, life experience barriers, but at the end of the day you are both people, you’re both human and there’s some commonalities. And those commonalities are a lot more than you would think initially. When we were getting ready to leave Iraq, we realized those commonalities were great.”

After his second tour, Mr. Hagerty moved to Washington D.C. where he worked at the Marine barracks for four years.

“The change of pace developed me, seeing how the Marine Corps operates outside of the infantry, seeing the national capital region, seeing how the politics work was definitely beneficial.”

While in D.C., Mr. Hagerty married Alessandra Boniface. As a child, Ms. Boniface and her family spent summers on the Vineyard and she crossed paths with her future husband now and then. They reconnected while Mr. Hagerty was at Northeastern and Ms. Boniface was attending Stonehill College in Easton.

Mr. and Mrs. Hagerty returned to the Vineyard in 2013 to start a family. They have two children, Julianna, 6, and William, 3.

Mr. Hagerty’s return to the Island coincided with his father becoming injured on the job and for awhile he helped out with the family business, Hagerty Tree Service. Then he attended Plymouth Police Academy and became an Oak Bluffs police officer in 2016. He took over as Edgartown town administrator in 2018.

For Mr. Hagerty, Veterans Day is about service and recognizing those who served. He said we should all thank those who serve and appreciate the sacrifices made to keep our nation’s republic intact.

“Although America has problems, it’s still the best country in the world,” he said.

For his fellow veterans, Mr. Hagerty said he wishes more of them knew how many of their skills translate to local government jobs.

“Veterans don’t know about a lot of the town government jobs and I think that veterans would do very well in this type of environment,” he said. “Because at the end of the day it’s a process-driven bureaucracy, the same thing as the Marine Corps, the Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard.”