Zukeran Elementary 1st Graders Honor Our Mom's and Dad's in Uniform

Wow! The first Grade did an amazing job during their celebration tonight! Kevin was, OF COURSE, the cutest one there:) There was an awesome slide show in the background. It flashed pictures of the kids with their active duty parent. All along the gym were essays that the students wrote about why they were proud of their Mom's and Dad's who serve in our armed forces. I had a lump in my throat the whole time.

It is quite a unique place where all the kids who attend school here have a Mom or Dad in the military. Some of the essays were heart wrenching! Some talking about their Daddy's being heroes in Iraq and fighting for our freedom and playing baseball and cooking hot dogs. Out of the mouths of babes. I was reading the essays when my friend who just returned from Iraq a few weeks ago walked up. I told him it would tear his heart out! Sure enough, he found his son's darling essay and turned to me and said: "Yep... You're right". In between each of the songs, some of the children read their essays out loud. Just so special.

Here is Kevin's essay! It says: "I am proud of my Marine Dad because he protects my country very well. He fights and never gives up. He always comes home safe."

The kids did a great job singing some pretty hard songs too! We heard renditions of You're a Grand Old Flag, 50 Nifty United States, America the Beautiful and each of the armed services hymns. The kids were wearing the cover of their parent's service. As each hymn was played those kids raised their covers and a few kids marched in that services flag. The Army and AF were pretty quite (In their defence... we are on a Marine Corps base). The Navy got a little more rowdy but the Marines had big cheers!!! The kids all sang the Marines Hymn and every Marine in the audience stood up... of course. The song ended with lots of hoots and hollers in the way that only Marines can do:) It was just great!

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