Fitch students hear from veteran

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

Austintown Fitch students paid tribute to veterans during a Monday morning assembly featuring patriotic choral

arrangements and personal stories of valor and sacrifice.

The school’s annual Veterans Day ceremony commemorated the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day and the end of World War I.

Township Trustee Ken Carano said the auditorium was full of veterans when he taught at the school 35 years ago. On Monday, the veterans filled only the first couple rows of seats. The oldest of them, James A. Rogers, was the only World War II vet.

Students stood and applauded, cheered and whistled for each veteran named during the ceremony. Many took time after dismissal to personally shake their hands.

Army veteran Delmas Stubbs of the Mahoning County Veterans Service Commission said many veterans “change their names” when enlisting – to “soldier” or “Marine.”

“For some of our veterans, we are unable to pay our respects at a final resting place,” he said, referencing the nearly 1,600 American soldiers listed as “missing in action” from Southeast Asia.

“To recognize their service and sacrifice, we must ensure these individuals are never forgotten and their actions stay alive in our hearts,” Stubbs said. “Keep a fallen comrade or a fallen soldier in your heart, and say a prayer for their family.”

Fitch teacher and Vietnam veteran Roger Bacon spoke publicly for the first time to a packed auditorium about the scope of that war, in which more than 300,000 were wounded or dismembered and from which more than 58,000 never returned. Many more “brought the war home with them” in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

For Bacon and other veterans, The Moving Wall traveling Vietnam memorial is more than 58,000 names, he said.

“To those of us that survived, we see the faces and feel the pain of what those names mean,” he said. “The next time you see a veteran, remember these numbers. Take a moment out of your life and offer him or her your gratitude, your understanding and your prayers.

“We ask for your understanding – why we may sometimes look and be perceived different from other people,” Bacon said. “We experienced life-changing events in the early years of our life.

“We are branded with that part of the American experience, and we are proud of it.”