Last night I saw an amazing thing! Westfield Washington School district had a couple hundred 2nd grade kids do their veterans day program. We moved a while back so this is our first year with kids in this school. I was told that they really do it up more than most schools so I was prepared for a little more than normal but WOW. Marsh let them use their huge flag to hang as the backdrop, it was at the high school auditorium (not some grade school cafeteria in the middle of the day (cough-Carmel-cough)), and the production was amazing.
It was obvious that this is near and dear to more than just a few people in this grade school. They had a full air force colonel narrate, they had the "Sons of the Revolution" organization dressed in period along with boy and girl scouts do the color guard, the kids had obviously been practicing in an environment and with instruction that gave them understanding and respect for the event. This was evident in their voices, body language, and energy. It was an evening event and I didn't see any of the kids just standing there trying to "blend in" and lip sync the words, they all belted out the lyrics like they were personally profiting from the sales of war bonds. In between each song the narrator transitioned from the historical beginning of the USA and its armed forces to now and then the kids sang a representative song from that era.
The kids also had a project over the last couple months to discover their family members that have served and try to get pictures of them for a video presentation. My awesome wife did a fine job of getting pics of people in our families going back to Sybil and Colonel Ludington (yeah, thats right, them!). Many other families did the same making for a great presentation.
At the end they played the video presentation/ slide show of all the kids relatives that have served. This tore me up. I can't say I held it together for this. Not only was it good to see the faces but to watch the kids pay attention to it and make note of their classmates and their military family trees. You could really see them take note and have a deeper understanding of the feeling of having family members in the service.
I am proud of this school district and just had to share this amazing experience.
