By Sean CW Korsgaard
CP Reporter
Last Friday morning, at the end of the first week of the new school year, history students got an up close and personal history lesson and the group of Caroline County Vietnam veterans who taught it to them got coffee, pastries, and a series of long overdue thank yous for teaching it to them.
Sara Gibson, a history teacher at Caroline Middle School, does her best to teacher her students about veterans and what they’ve done for this country, helping the History Club with the Korean War Memorial Garden, and organizing field trips to the Marine Corps Museum and the Vietnam War Foundation and Museum. Last Friday though, for only the second time, she brought in four local Vietnam veterans to speak with her classes about their experiences.
“Our veterans are our National Treasures, I truly believe that,” said Gibson. “It’s my hope that the students learn to appreciate every opportunity that they have, including the right to a free education, but I want them to understand that the freedoms we have, they don’t come free, someone paid a price for those freedoms.”
Only the veterans were allowed to sit for the duration of the class, while the other desks were taped over, with the names of several Virginians KIA/MIA in Vietnam listed on a card on each desk. There were brief quizzes about civics and history, along with several activities they did with the attending veterans. The highlight though, was each veteran taking a turn to tell their stories.
Linda Boone, a former US Army nurse, brought a photo album of her time in the service, and talked to the kids about some of the things she saw in the field hospitals of Vietnam. US Army veteran Armando “Recon” Flores talked about his time spent in several countries overseas, with his favorite being spending a summer or two stationed in Okinawa. It would be Paul Pitts though, a US Air Force veteran, telling his stories though that left the room stunned.
“One of the things the Viet Cong would do is pull the pin out of grenade, hand it to a kid of about three or four and tell them to go give it to an American. It happened to me once, I had the kid dead blank, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. One of my squad mates, a good friend of mine, he ran forward to try and throw the grenade away, but the kid dropped it, and they both were killed,” said Pitts. “My best friend died because I didn’t have it in me to shoot a kid. Then when we got back to the states, and college kids spat on us and called us baby killers.”
With the full attention of the room on him, and several of them openly moved to tears by his story, Pitts looked up at the school children surrounding him. There was a glimmer in his eyes as well.
“Today was the first time I can remember with people celebrating our service, and I want you to know that it means the world to me, to all of us.”
Stories like those are a major part of why Gibson says she holds events like this, and hopes that Karen Foster, Caroline Middle School’s new principal, allows more events like it in the future.
“To have the chance to bring in living history, I couldn’t pass that up, if my kids learn a little about Vietnam or civics from this, or even to shake a veteran’s hand, so much the better,” said Gibson. “Our veterans are our National Treasures, I truly believe that.”
It certainly had an impact on her kids – Janiyaha Pickett, a 6th Grader in Mrs. Gibson’s class, said it gave her a new appreciation for several members of her own family serving in the military.
“My uncle and my brother on my dad’s side is in the military,” said Pickett. “They served just like these men did, and it’s hard for them, that’s why we have to listen to them.”
As for the veterans themselves, they were happy to do it, according to Linda Boone.
“For a lot of Vietnam veterans, we didn’t get the kind of homecoming we should have returning from the war, so even all these years later, it means so much to see these kids cheering for us, to have a chance to tell our stories, maybe to teach them a thing or two,” said Boone. “We did what we did because it was our duty, and we only ask what every veteran asks of their fellow Americans: that they remember us, honor our sacrifices, and that they never forget us.”
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