'Atten-hut': East Lyme middle school students focus on veterans

Nov. 10—EAST LYME — Eighty-nine fifth graders can be quiet when they want to be.

On Friday, while many schools were closed to commemorate Veterans Day, students at East Lyme Middle School were gathered in mini-auditoriums known as kivas for a question-and-answer session with active and retired members of the U.S. military.

In the Seadogs kiva, the grade five students waited with rapt attention for the answer to one girl's question: "Were you scared on your first day of service?"

Brian Burridge, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War era and later in the Connecticut National Guard, imitated the recruit division commander who greeted him on his first day of boot camp by barking out an "atten-hut" that made the students jump. The command is used to bring service members to attention.

"The second you get off that plane, there's somebody in uniform to meet you and he gives you the impression immediately, right off the bat, that he has no respect for long hair or bad attitudes," Burridge said. "He will tell you exactly what to breathe, how to step, when to move and he controls your life throughout boot camp. You are so scared that you want to cry yourself to sleep."

It was a memory ingrained more recently in U.S. Coast Guard Academy freshman Courtney Shire when she arrived in New London this June for seven weeks of grueling training known as Swab Summer.

She recalled having 10 seconds to get off the bus and 15 minutes to say goodbye to her family. Most of the time, she was being screamed at.

"It was very scary," she said.

The panel discussions were part of a daylong event organized by members of the middle school's Service Club. Members in blue shirts guided the veterans from one panel discussion to another, and then to a luncheon, before sitting down again for a schoolwide assembly.

The event is in its 10th year, according to Service Club advisor Mario Cruz. There were 70 current and former service members at the school Friday.

Some wore full dress uniforms. Some wore fatigues. Some wore the hats of veterans organizations. Others wore T-shirts or sweatshirts representing their branch of service. Still others wore suits and ties.

Retired submariner Wayne Gates was in a cap from Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5849 in Niantic. He told students of the Seadogs kiva that members of the military give up many of their freedoms so everyone else can be free. He served from 1971 to 1977.

Gates described going out to sea for up to 70 days at a time.

The hardest part was leaving his family, according to Gates. "What was nice was when you got home," he said. "It was all worthwhile once you got home."

John Genta, a 20-year member of the submarine service who retired last year, talked about being influenced by his grandparents' memories of the world wars.

"As I was growing up, I heard a lot of stories about some of the things they did, very similar to the stories we're sharing with you," he said. He choked up while invoking the national anthem's closing ode to "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

"There were some very brave people who inspired me to join," he said.

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Alex Dolly said he was born in South Korea, where his father was stationed when he met his mother.

"I remember growing up watching him, and I saw the structure and the discipline he got from the military and what it did to change his life," Dolly said. "We didn't necessarily have everything we wanted, but he guaranteed we had everything we needed."

Dolly was a sophomore in high school when the 9/11 terrorist attacks left him angry to a point he couldn't describe to the students. With his father as a role model and the attacks as a defining influence on his life, he decided to enlist.

"But there was a little extra bit where I was like 'I've got to do it a step better,' so I joined the Marine Corps," he said, drawing laughs from students, teachers and fellow members on the panel.

Glenn PenkoffLidbeck, a retired Air Force major and a teacher in the Seadogs kiva, expressed his appreciation to staff and students for recognizing the service of those gathered for the event.

He recalled being the same age his students are now when the Vietnam War was dividing so much of the country.

"It was not a very popular war. And veterans that came back were not treated very well," he said.

Air Force veteran John Gregor, a teacher's assistant at the school, watched the panel discussion from the back of the room. He had been peppered with questions from a group of boys while they lined up to take their seats.

"Wait, are you a veteran?" one of them asked. Another wondered which branch he served in. A third student said "so, you can fly a plane?"

Gregor served from 1959 to 1963 in Japan, Korea and the Philippines before becoming an electrical engineer thanks to the GI Bill's academic benefits.

He chalked up some of the students' interest to video games about war, but acknowledged there's more to it than that.

"Things have changed, thank God," he said. "When I got out of the service, there were too many riots going on. Now there's a lot more respect for veterans than we used to have."

e.regan@theday.com