BY JORDAN M. BLASZKE
6th grade, Northwoods Community Secondary School

Do you know the difference between Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day? The difference is Veterans’ Day is to honor the people who served in the military who are still living and Memorial Day is to honor the military personnel who have passed away. On the day before Veterans Day we had veterans visit our school to talk about their stories from the wars. When we had the veterans at our school, they sat in separate classrooms and we got to pick which rooms to go into to learn what happened in the war. I picked Mr. Santy’s room.

The Veterans in the room talked about their living arrangements during the war. One lived like a king; the other lived in a tent that was only 8 feet tall and 11 feet wide. Also one of the veterans talked about how he found bombs and had to remove them. How they did that was to use a machine to find the bombs and then with a big fork-like thing, grabbed the bomb and moved it away.

He also talked about how he was able to talk with his family. One time he was able to see his son open his presents for Christmas. Then, his family opened his on camera. I thought it was cool how that was done.

Next, I went to Mrs. Higgins’ room to meet another veteran, a woman who was in the Navy. She said that when she dies she wants to be buried at the bottom of the sea. She asked if we had any veterans in the family, and I said that I did. She said the only way to get her kids to be active is to play Pokemon Go. She also said that she bought her kids a lot of Pokemon cards, and asked if anybody played Pokemon Go; and a few students raised their hands.
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fter that, we went to Mrs. Santy’s room for ten minutes and a few students were able to say something they liked about the veterans they were with. I liked how all of them took time out of their day to come talk with us and tell stories from when they were in the service and all of the other parts of the military.

Students and staff at the Northwoods Community Secondary School in Rhinelander write a weekly column for the Star Journal. For more information, contact Kristin Higgins, higgiKri@Rhinelander.k12.wi.us.