The hundreds of Joseph B. Radez Elementary School students who honored about 75 veterans Monday were born long after most of the former GIs fought their wars.
That hardly seemed to matter, Principal Brian Dineen said, after the largest annual celebration of Veterans Day at the school in a decade.
“It’s to celebrate the people who served our country, and give then a day to relax,” was how 8-year-old Marigrace Gerhardt summed it up as she happily helped put chairs away.
“The kids have to understand that freedom is not free,” said George Watson, commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5081 in Cobleskill, and an Army veteran who served in Germany during the Korean War.
“They probably know more about the Civil War than World War II,” said Lewis Ward of Cobleskill, an infantryman in the Korean War.
Enriching that knowledge was part of the reason for a breakfast followed by a 45-minute program of songs, poems and gifts presented by the 300 or so children.
“I hope that it’s an effort to not just understand Veterans Day, but to make connections with our community,” Dineen said.
“There’s a lot of grandpas and grandmas, and aunts and uncles, who served, and this gives them a chance to make connections with the kids,” he said.
About a dozen of the veterans, including several women, served in World War II. Many were from the Korean or Vietnam War eras, and several served in the 1991 Gulf War, or the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A couple noted they had younger generations of their families serving overseas now.
As they stood up one by one to briefly introduce themselves and say when they served, the veterans didn’t say much. But the litany of Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard units drew a timeline from World War II to Iraq.
Gary Schacher, himself a Navy veteran of Iraq, noted that nationally, “we’re losing veterans of World War II at a rate of 1,200 to 1,500 a day.”
Schacher is a coordinator of the Leatherstocking Honor Flight, which on Nov. 19 will fly its second Schoharie County area group to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Information about the flight can be obtained from the county’s Office for the Aging at 295-2001.
After flag ceremonies opened the program, fifth-grader Jessica Carrozzi sang a stirring “Star Spangled Banner.” First- and second-graders sang patriotic songs and third-graders read a line each of a poem they adapted with the help of teachers Aimee Ullman and Will Beekman.
Small paper bags decorated by students with red, white and blue images contained simple, symbolic gifts for each veteran.
Inside, a rolled-up copy of the third-graders’ poem explained the gifts that included a star, a sticker, a chocolate Kiss, a tissue, a pencil, a penny and a Lifesaver.
“The bandage is to tell you that we will never forget the sacrifices you made to keep our country free,” one line of the poem explained.
“The gold thread is a symbol of how we are tied together as Americans from one generation to the next.”
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