[Rhodes22-list] History? Politics? School Days?

[Brad Haslett]

Mary,

There seems to be a growing interest in the "Greatest Generation".  Even as
a child I was a history junkie and begged my Dad for WW2 stories.  He
wouldn't indulge but for a funny tale or two, like how they would put canned
Spam on the manifold of their deuce-and-a-half truck (he drove in the Red
Ball Express, Patton's supply chain delivery system) to warm it up.  Usually
there would be enough bottlenecks for them to retrieve the "meat" but
occasionally the convoy would keep moving and their "meat" would blow up.
I'd pull old black and white photos out of a drawer in my parent's bedroom
and play "fifty questions", but he'd tear-up and stop talking.  In the last
few years, one of the teachers in my hometown has invited him to address her
class every year and he now seems to relish the attention.  Let's see, he's
85, it only took 50 years.  I appreciate efforts like Ms. Cothern's to
record their memories.  One of the members of his unit kept a diary of their
experience from enlistment through victory in Europe.  My dad and another
farm boy, last name Hansen, were famous for "liberating" French cows when
they had the chance and feeding the unit steaks instead of Spam. The Haslett
and Hansen team were very popular. Dad came home from Germany and married
Mom, who was working in a defense plant in Springfield, IL, and more or less
lived happily ever after.  We may never see such a period in history again.

About 15 years ago I was sitting airport standby in Indy and got launched in
the wee hours to take a good 727 to replace one that had blown an engine in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  CID wasn't a layover city for us so we were on our own
when we got there.  The cab that picked us up had a 95th Infantry Division
sticker on the rear window.  I knew the 95th was a reserve unit in Little
Rock, far removed from the 95th ID that my Dad served in.  I asked the
driver what the sticker was about.  "Oh that's some World War Two shit the
owner puts on all the cabs".  I called Dad and he said, "that's Kid Shaefer,
all he talked about was going home to Cedar Rapids and starting a cab
company".  I called "Kid Shaefer" later after some sleep and it was one of
the richest days of my life.

Brad



On 8/16/07, Ellner <ellner at pressenter.com> wrote:
>
> Brad:  Sent this one on to the "Ms. Cothern's" of our
> family.......Thank You!          Mary
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 08:04 PM 8/15/2007, you wrote:
> >A long time ago I lived just around the corner from this school.  I never
> >met Ms. Cothren but I'd like to.  Brad
> >
> >
> >---------------------
> >
> >Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha
> >Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in
> >Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of
> >school, with permission of the school superintendent and the
> >principal, she took all of the desks out of the classroom.
> >
> >The students came into first period and discovered there were no
> >desks.
> >
> >They looked around and asked, "Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?"
> >
> >She replied, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn
> >them."
> >
> >They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."
> >
> >"No," she answered.
> >
> >"Maybe it's our behavior."
> >
> >She told them, "No, it's not your behavior."
> >
> >And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the
> >classroom.
> >
> >Second period, same thing and third period-no desks. By early
> >afternoon, television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren's class
> >to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out
> >of the classroom. The last period of the day, Martha Cothren
> >gathered her class. They were at this time sitting on the floor
> >around the sides of the room.
> >
> >She stated to her students, "Throughout the day no one has really
> >understood how you earn the desks that ordinarily sit in this
> >classroom."
> >
> >She added, "Now I'm going to show you."
> >
> >Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.
> >
> >27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom,
> >each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks
> >in rows, and then they stood along the walls. By the time they had
> >finished placing those desks, those kids for the first time
> >understood how they earned those desks. FREEDOM!
> >
> >Martha said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it
> >for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit
> >here responsibly to learn, to be good students and good citizens,
> >because they paid a price for you to have that desk to sit in and to
> >learn and don't ever forget it."
> >
> >*I received this yesterday and wanted to share it with everyone. I wish
> that
> >every school in this great Nation had teachers like Martha Cothren
> teaching
> >in them. Teaching our children the true price of the freedoms that we as
> US
> >citizens enjoy. When I first read this, I was a bit skeptical and wasn't
> >sure that it was true, so I did some checking and found that indeed,
> Martha
> >Cothren did this to teach her history class. Martha Cothren is the
> daughter
> >of a World War II POW and regularly has Veterans visit her classroom,
> when
> >teaching her students about World War II and the Vietnam War. *
> >
> >*This isn't all that Martha Cothren has done to impart to her students
> the
> >true meaning of selfless service and sacrifice. In May 2005, she and her
> >students organized a Vietnam Veterans Appreciation Week, holding an
> official
> >Thank You ceremony in the gymnasium of their school. The event was
> attended
> >by not only Vietnam Veterans, but also veterans from World War II and the
> >Korean War. During that week, as veterans told their stories, the
> students
> >videotaped these stories in order to preserve them for future generations
> to
> >hear. Cothren and her students are also active in sending letters and
> care
> >packages to the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006, the VFW
> >honored Martha Cothren as the 2006 Teacher of the Year, an award she so
> >richly deserves. *
> >
> >*I hope that the story of Martha Cothren's lesson about how freedom is
> >earned will inspire each of us to strive to follow her example. Thank You
> >Martha Cothren for imparting to your students the true meaning of how
> >freedom is earned.*
> >
> >The story can be verified at Snopes<
> http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp>
> >__________________________________________________
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>
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