I lived for a while in Emporia, KS. The birth place of Veteran's day. Veteran's Day used to be called Armistice day, which celebrated the cease fire of WWI that is said to have occurred at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. A business man in Emporia worked to get it changed to Veteran's Day in order to honor ALL veterans of the military. Because of this, Emporia takes great pride in Veteran's Day and everything is shut down. Businesses are not open, there is a very large parade and other events, and of course there is no school. Now, ever since having lived there I have always taken the stand that there should be no school, just like other national holidays.
Today was different. I went to school knowing that today would be a different type of school day. The kids were going through a health fair in the morning and then after lunch we were having a Veteran's day program to honor all those who have served or are currently serving our country. Little did I know just how powerful today would be.
At 12 we all gathered in the gym and welcomed local veterans into the gym with the band playing. We had Veterans from every war from WWII to one individual who was leaving at 2:00 TODAY for Afghanistan! They were all recognized, the choir sang the Star Spangled Banner, the band played, students read Veteran's Day essays, and many of us had to blink back tears throughout the presentation.
After this the students were lucky enough to be able to listen to our heroes speak about their experiences. We heard stories of years at sea carring bombs to the Pacific Islands, having to pull the bodies of fallen soldiers on the beaches of Normandy to be buried, flying aircraft in Vietnam, experiencing "friendly fire" and marching in the hot desert in Kuwait. WOW. What an awesome lesson our middle school kids learned today.
I now firmly believe that EVERY school should do something like this to honor our Veterans. If we would have let out school not one of those kids would have showed our soldiers the type of respect they saw today. What our teenagers learned today was far more important than any algebra problem or science experiment they would have done otherwise.
Far too often we take for granted the things that are most important...for all you who have served, are serving, or have lost loved ones, thank you.
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