Last Wednesday, students at Pipestone Area Schools learned what Veterans Day is all about.
They heard from veterans who serve today and who served more than 50 years ago. They learned about what it takes to become a soldier and about the sacrifice involved in serving overseas.
Bruce Wing, who served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1958, spoke to Nancy Siebenahler’s fourth grade class about his experience in the Army.
Siebenahler said she invited Wing to speak to her class so they could learn from an actual veteran.
“I want my students to know veterans are heroes,” she said. “The students learn about respect, patriotism, sacrifice and freedom first hand. It also helps teach the kids why we are proud to be Americans.”
During Wing’s visit, Siebenahler explained to the students that Veteran’s Day began as Armistice Day. It began on Nov. 11, 1919, she told them, when President Woodrow Wilson declared it as a time to commemorate the end of hostilities on the Western Front during WWI in 1918. Later, she said, it was set aside as a day to remember all veterans and their service.
“It’s quite a sacrifice for our soldiers,” Wing said.
He then spoke to the students about the training he went through to become a soldier. Much of the machinery and weapons that he was trained on, he said, can now be found only in museums. To illustrate the point he showed the children pictures of the equipment he used in the 1950s and the equipment used by soldiers today.
“The wars now in Afghanistan and Iraq are a whole different game than what I’m talking about here,” he said.
At the high school, both middle and high school students watched a Veterans Day program that included patriotic songs by the school bands and choirs, history lessons about the wars America’s veterans have fought in, and Veterans Day tributes from veterans Sgt. Chad Boeke and Maurice Bickford.
Boeke, who served in Korea and more recently in Iraq, spoke to the students about the sacrifices soldiers make and the risks they take to serve their country.
“Our nation owes a great debt to its veterans,” he said. “Their country called and they answered.”
He told the students they should honor and respect veterans by taking advantage of the rights veterans fight to protect.
“Twenty-five million veterans walk among us today,” he told the students. “And on this day we salute them all.”
Jackie Hess, who teaches eighth grade social studies, organized the program. To her, the program is a way of continuing the story of America’s veterans.
“The students hear real stories told by our service men and women and they will remember those stories and pass them on,” she said. “Students also get to hear and see the personal side to serving in our military and defending freedom around the globe instead of just hearing about it in a class or reading it in a textbook.”
It’s also a way, she said, to teach the students to respect their elders and what they have done to defend the nation and preserve its freedom. The hope is that the students left the programs feeling a renewed respect for the nation's soldiers and sharing the sentiments of Sgt. Boeke in his closing remarks to the veterans at Wednesday’s program.
“You have the eternal gratitude of a grateful nation,” he said.
