Local veterans continue to teach Millstone youths about military life and life and as veteran.
Veterans Coalition Millstone Post 03 Commander Rick Brody (l) and veteran Barry Rosenzweig talk to Millstone Township Middle School students about life in the military and life as a veteran during an assembly on Nov. 16. ERIC SUCAR staff Two years after members of the Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and Veterans Coalition of New Jersey Post 3 first visited the middle school to teach fourth-graders about the meaning behind the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) flag, they returned to educate the now sixthgraders about honoring veterans. The “Heroes Assembly” took place Nov. 16 in the Millstone Township Performing Arts Center.
Barry Rosenzweig, a Freehold resident who served as a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army, led the presentation, which included saluting the flag and singing patriotic songs.
Veteran Barry Rosenzweig, of Freehold, leads Millstone Township Middle School sixthgraders in patriotic songs during an assembly on Nov. 16. ERIC SUCAR staff “We’re so happy to be back here today,” Rosenzweig said. “You’ve certainly grown over the past couple years. You’ve grown into the new middle school. You should be proud of your accomplishments and yourselves.”
Rosenzweig told the students that there are many Americans on active duty in many parts of the world, including places without military conflict.
“There are 45,000 personnel in Korea 8,000 miles away, and they’ve been there since the end of the Korean conflict in 1953,” he said. “They are representing our country and trying to maintain peace in that part of the world.”
There are thousands more Americans serving active duty in Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world, he said.
“They are there to represent our democracy, our way of life and all the freedoms that you have,” he said.
Rosenzweig said many Americans have chosen military service since the time when America was composed of 13 colonies. He spoke of the first servicemen, the Minuteman, who “were ready in a minute to defend our country.”
In an effort to explain to the sixthgraders the impact that military service personnel have had on the lives of Americans, Rosenzweig spoke about a teacher from Little Rock, Ark., who denied students the use of desks on the first day of school until they could explain what they did to earn the right to them. When the last class period of the day approached and no student had given her the answer she sought, television crews and others gathered to witness 27 U.S. veterans in uniforms carry the desks into the classroom.
“The students started to realize that they didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks,” Rosenzweig said. “Those heroes did it for them. It is your responsibility to learn to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so you could get an education.”
Rosenzweig made a point to tell the children that he and Rick Brody, commander of the Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and Veterans Coalition of New Jersey Post 3, were not present in the school to profess war.
“We hope to find ends, solutions to conflict that are peaceful,” he said. “You are charged, as the next generation of leaders, with finding these means and helping find the solutions that are peaceful.”
Brody added, “We are not here to talk about war so much as to talk about peace.”
Veterans Day, initially called Armistice Day, started when World War I ended 92 years ago with armistice, a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting.
“They all put their weapons down at the same time,” Brody said, adding that Veterans Day is annually commemorated on Nov. 11 because World War I ended at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918.
Brody also spoke about the tradition of wearing a poppy to honor those who lost their lives during a war. The tradition started with a poem written by Canadian surgeon Lt. Col. John McCrae, who served in Belgium during World War I.
“After weeks and weeks of operating on soldiers, and there were a lot of lives he could not save, he sat down on the back of an ambulance and looked out over the field and started thinking about the soldiers that died,” Brody said. “He saw poppies growing in the field. In May, the poppies should not have been out, but because graves were dug and the soil was turned up, poppies grew on Flanders Field.”
The veterans thanked the sixth-graders for their desire to learn about military life and life as a veteran. While leading the assembly in “The Marines’ Hymn,” “Anchors Aweigh,” “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” “Semper Paratus” and “The Army Air Corps (Into the Wild Blue Yonder),” the veterans asked those in the audience to stand to represent their relatives who served or are currently serving in the American military. Approximately 30 stood to represent a relative in the Marines, 50 for the Navy, 70 for the Army, 10 for the Coast Guard and 70 for the Air Force.
“There are soldiers in harm’s way right now,” Brody said. “Our troops are 18 and 19 [years old] and still putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom and the right to be here today.”
The program ended with a question-andanswer session with children’s book author Madeline Collins, who wrote “Stars and Stripes Celebrate Memorial Day.” The Allentown High School student wrote and illustrated the book to earn the Girl Scout Gold Award. Brody served as her adviser on the project, which benefits the Bob Woodruff Foundation, remind.org, which helps returning wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Veterans Coalition New Jersey Post 3 is dedicated to helping veterans in need and provides services for both able-bodied and disabled veterans.
The group wants to teach the public about life in the military and life as a veteran, and works with other posts to build group homes for soldiers who need help transitioning back to civilian life.