The Median Sib

As a teacher who’s not real keen on the NEA, I was happy to find an article in the April issue of NEA Today that was supportive of the military - at least on the surface.  The article is entitled “Heat, Bugs, and Bullets,” and it’s about the experiences of education support professionals (ESPs) as citizen soldiers in the Army Reserves.First of all, what are education support professionals?  They’re people who hold such jobs as school bus drivers, cafeteria workers and fleet mechanics in school systems. Schools couldn’t make it without them.

The NEA Today  article highlights three ESPs who left their jobs temporarily to serve our country.  Karen Mahurin, president of the National Council of ESPs says:

“When our country calls ESPs, it’s hard for them, having to leave their families and jobs.  But they don’t hesitate to defend America and everything we stand for.”

Staff Sgt. James Smith, a school bus driver in Las Vegas, tells about being in Iraq and driving a truck in an army convoy.

“Cars would come up beside you and start shooting, or kids would run up to the truck and throw a grenade in the cab.”

Spc. Kimberley Potter, a school bus driver from Las Vegas, tells that:

“In other places people would sometimes shout at us and slide their index finger across their throat.”

Staff Sgt. Kenny Ham, a fleet mechanic for a school services board in New York who flew combat missions as a door gunner while in the Middle East, writes of the poverty suffered by the local people he saw during several humanitarian missions to Afghani villages in Kandahar. He tells us how:

“People came running out of their homes - which were mud huts made of straw.  As word spread, more and more people came on foot, by camel and donkey.  It was chilly, and the kids were barefoot, wearing a single layer of clothing.  Their little hands were chapped and weathered. (Afghanistan) is so far behind the modern world, it is beyond belief.”

These soldiers left their civilian education support jobs in the United States to go to a combat zone to fight for their country.  I know I’m not alone when I write that I would like to see MORE reports about the extraordinary people who give of themselves to protect the rights of the useful idiiots back home to protest and otherwise endanger more of these fine warriors with their anti-everything blatherings.

Beth, at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, writes about a REAL American hero, Staff Sgt. Martin Richburg.  Beth heard about the story from The Anchoress.  Since the MSM generally determines that we don’t need to know about such stories, it hasn’t been in the news much - if at all. Go read it.

It was 1978, and my newborn son was only two weeks old. I’d been cooped up in the house since his birth, and I was ready to get out and do something.  It was a lovely autumn day, and PawPaw suggested that we take the baby and his three year old sister and go on a picnic in the mountains to take in the fall scenery. We packed a picnic basket and a diaper bag, grabbed a blanket, and headed a couple hours north to Amicalola Falls - a beautiful park in the north Georgia mountains.

The autumn leaves were spectacular, the weather was sunny and cool, and the sound and sight of the falls were soothing. I remember sitting in the shade on the blanket near the top of the falls, holding the baby in my arms - looking at his perfect and content face - and breathing in the crisp mountain air. I watched PawPaw playing nearby with our daughter.  And, as if it happened merely a minute ago, I remember thinking, “This is the most perfect moment I can imagine.” And it was.