The Natrona County High School Class of 2014 graduates today, May 24, 2014.
It is, of course, also Memorial Day weekend..
It's been interesting for a variety of reasons. It would be interesting any way, as I'm a graduate of NCHS, my wife is a graduate of NCHS, my father in law, mother in law, two brothers in law, two uncles, three aunts, and my father graduated from NCHS; and my son attends NCHS.
And NC is undergoing major renovation. It's 80 year old swimming pool, which is where I practiced when a swim team member, and where my son has also practiced for the same reason, will be torn down in that project in a couple of weeks, with no replacement pool in the offering as the local voters refused to pass the bond that would have funded that and other projects. We were involved in the effort to pass the bond, which was narrowly defeated. All of that would have made that interesting.
But it's also interesting as the choice of Memorial Day has caused a minor flap on the party of some who are upset on the basis that they conceive of a graduation over Memorial Day weekend (but not on the day tiself) as disrespectful to veterans in general and war dead in particular.
Well, while I say honor the day, my view on that is that the critics of the graduation should relax, reconsider and frankly reflect on this.. Dates for high school graduations are pretty strictly controlled around here and they had little other choice. Beyond that, two of the young men that I've grown to know over the years are going to be leaving shortly after they graduate for Navy basic training. And it occurs to me that a lot of our war dead weren't much older when they died than those young men entering the service. Indeed, a couple of the World War Two veterans I've known, including one who attended NCHS, left high school for the army. Anyhow, it occurs to me that those young men probably would have preferred to be at a high school graduation rather than in some mud hole in Italy, some freezing pit in Belgium, or some sandy foxhole on Iwo Jima, so maybe a high school graduation is honoring them in a way that they might like to be honored.
It's been interesting for a variety of reasons. It would be interesting any way, as I'm a graduate of NCHS, my wife is a graduate of NCHS, my father in law, mother in law, two brothers in law, two uncles, three aunts, and my father graduated from NCHS; and my son attends NCHS.
And NC is undergoing major renovation. It's 80 year old swimming pool, which is where I practiced when a swim team member, and where my son has also practiced for the same reason, will be torn down in that project in a couple of weeks, with no replacement pool in the offering as the local voters refused to pass the bond that would have funded that and other projects. We were involved in the effort to pass the bond, which was narrowly defeated. All of that would have made that interesting.
But it's also interesting as the choice of Memorial Day has caused a minor flap on the party of some who are upset on the basis that they conceive of a graduation over Memorial Day weekend (but not on the day tiself) as disrespectful to veterans in general and war dead in particular.
Well, while I say honor the day, my view on that is that the critics of the graduation should relax, reconsider and frankly reflect on this.. Dates for high school graduations are pretty strictly controlled around here and they had little other choice. Beyond that, two of the young men that I've grown to know over the years are going to be leaving shortly after they graduate for Navy basic training. And it occurs to me that a lot of our war dead weren't much older when they died than those young men entering the service. Indeed, a couple of the World War Two veterans I've known, including one who attended NCHS, left high school for the army. Anyhow, it occurs to me that those young men probably would have preferred to be at a high school graduation rather than in some mud hole in Italy, some freezing pit in Belgium, or some sandy foxhole on Iwo Jima, so maybe a high school graduation is honoring them in a way that they might like to be honored.
My service, as I have noted here before, was in the National Guard, although because of the length of training during the time during which I was receiving it, I have an Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army (that is, we were in the active duty Army during training, and for such a long period that we qualify as veterans). That may make my prospective a bit different, but if it does, I suspect that my point is all the more valid. All of us in the Guard in that period were of course volunteers, with quite a few being men who had served in the Vietnam War. It seemed to me that in our conversations, while we all had an interest in the service, we talked more about routine matters, or matters that concerned us in our daily lives. For those men who served in 1860-1865, or 1917-1918, or 1940-1945, or what have you, who often served without a real choice, and who tended to be young men, my guess is that is all the more the case. I"m sure that on the plaque honoring NCHS's war dead from World War Two, which is in the school lobby, and past which hundreds of students pass each day, are the names of many young men whose souls would look back out on those familiar halls where they had walked and, if they were to speak, would say "I wish I could be there tonight".
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