A group of high school students spent a day learning history from veterans in a Memorial Day project.
For the past 20 years, history students at Loy Norrix High School in Kalamazoo have connected with veterans at Battle Creek VA Medical Center. This year they placed 650 flags on graves and presented reports to the veterans on their life stories for a Living History project.
In March, two to four students each were matched with a veteran. The service of the veterans ranged from World War Ii to the Gulf War. Students researched the veterans and the wars they fought in.
They personalized essays about each vet, with Living History notebooks which included photos of the person when they were on active duty.
Many of the veterans were impressed with the work the students had done, and quietly perused the stories about them. Then, they began to ask students questions about what they wrote.
“You can tell they paid attention,” said Chris Hale, 49, a Gulf War veteran participating in the project for the fifth time. “They took good notes; that’s what I was just asking (one of the students) about. I know they did some research and they put a lot of hard work into it.”
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