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Valentines for Soldiers
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Alaina Moody proudly shows off the Valentine’s Day card that she and her military partner made for troops in Afghanistan.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Jessica Myers from Youngstown State University’s Armed Forces Student Association and Gianna Zamudio, a kindergarten student at Zion Christian School at Zion Lutheran Church in Youngstown, share a quiet moment while creating Valentine’s Day cards to be sent to troops in Afghanistan. George McDonnell, a local business leader, has been instrumental in providing connections for delivery of the valentines. The event was sponsored by Shepherd of the Valley Home Health.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Aidan Hankey, right, and William Ronci from Shepherd of The Valley-Poland and a World War II Army veteran, share a laugh while making Valentine’s Day cards to be sent to military personnel in Afghanistan. Aidan is a kindergarten student at Zion Christian School at Zion Lutheran Church in Youngstown. Ronci fought in several battles with the 3rd and 7th Armies in their drive across Europe toward Germany. A group of young veterans, members of the Armed Forces Student Association at Youngstown State University, also participated in the event sponsored by Shepherd of the Valley Home Health.
CANFIELD
While 6-year-old Aidan Hankey was making Valentine’s Day cards with World War II veterans and local Army National Guard members to send to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, he became concerned.
“If they are here,” Aidan said of the National Guardsmen in uniform, “who is protecting us?”
“Kids,” as the late television personality Art Linkletter famously said, “say the darndest things.”
Aidan was OK with it when his mom, Geniene Hankey, administrator of Zion Christian School at Zion Lutheran Church in Cornersburg, explained that the guardsman already had served and other soldiers were now protecting them.
“I told him we wanted to send extra love because the soldiers overseas don’t have their families with them,” Hankey said.
She said her son likes putting all the stickers on the valentines and wrote: “Dear Vets, I’m grateful to you.” He hopes someone who gets one of his cards will write back and say thanks, Aidan’s mother said.
Aidan and other excited Zion preschoolers teamed up to make valentines last week with WWII veterans William Ronci and Robert Clark, both residents at Shepherd of the Valley-Poland, and Army National Guardsmen Sgt. Paul Hageman and Staff Sgt. Chris Dawson.
Hageman and Dawson are president and vice president, respectively, of the Armed Forces Student Association at Youngstown State University.
Sponsored by Shepherd of the Valley Home Health, the valentines will be delivered to troops in Afghanistan. George McDonnell, a local business leader who was in Afghanistan with his troop a year ago, has been instrumental in providing connections for the delivery, said Lynn L. Miller, SOV corporate marketing director.
It isn’t just the kids who had a good time making the valentines.
“I loved it,” said Clark, 85, who served in the Marine Corps during WWII and fought in the Battle of Okinawa in the spring and early summer 1945. He was discharged in 1946 as a sergeant.
“It brings tears to your eyes. I love them, the little kids with all their exuberance. Let’s hope they never have to know about war,” he said.
Clark graduated in 1952 from Youngstown College with a mechanical-engineering degree. He worked at Electric and Fuel Fired Furnace in Salem, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., and at Fordees Corp. in Leetonia before retiring in 1992. He and his wife, Phyllis, who is deceased, had nine children.
“I really enjoy socializing with the kids and doing something together,” said Ronci, 89.
Ronci was drafted into the Army in 1940, the year that he graduated from Youngstown East High School. He was in Central Europe from 1942 to 1944 with the 3rd and 7th Armies and participated in three major battles. After the war, he delivered milk for Seal-test Dairy; was a salesman for Metropolitan Life, retiring in 1980; and then worked 20 years at Family Discount Drug in Cornersburg.
Ronci said he made valentines with the school kids in 2010 and liked it so much he came back this year.
“The little boy who was my partner was a little trooper. He was so busy,” Ronci said.
“Once upon a time, I was on the receiving end of a couple of valentines from a school in Vermont. I still have them in a shoebox,” said Hageman, explaining part of the reason he participated in Zion’s valentine project.
“It’s kind of like payback,” said Hageman, who was deployed to Kuwait in 2008.
Hageman, son of Wayne and Diane Hageman and a 2003 graduate of Jackson-Milton High School, enlisted in the National Guard on Aug. 15, 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He is a senior at YSU studying civil engineering.
Dawson, son of Leonard and Sharon Davis of Geneva, enlisted in the Guard in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
A senior at YSU studying criminal justice and psychology, Davis had been deployed to Kuwait and Kosovo.
It’s fun for the kids and educational, too, said Hankey of the valentine project.
“So many times the kids see soldiers and veterans in books, but to see them in person and hear their stories is special,” she added.