Two sixth-graders at an Alexandria elementary school chatted about what they want to be when they grow up. “I’m going to do the Marines, then try to become a Green Beret, or maybe a Navy SEAL.”
“Oh, I’m going to do the Army.”
LeBron James had never felt so slighted.
Half of the students at Mount Vernon Woods Elementary come from military families, and many of them say they have dreams of joining up. At some schools, the students might just say this because Veterans Day is the hot thing in school that day. But it’s not like that at Mount Vernon Woods. The Title I school, where 86 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, is four miles up Route 1 from Fort Belvoir. The physical education teacher, a counselor and a classroom assistants are among veterans on school staff.
“The kids are really aware, and a lot of them spend time at Fort Belvoir,” said Odyssey Patton, a fifth-grade teacher. “A lot of them graduate from high school, and that’s what they know. The next step is the military.”
On Wednesday, several veterans visited the students, who lined the sidewalks in matching beige T-shirts that sagged to their knees, while they waved paper flags and chanted “Let’s go, veterans, let’s go!”
Katherine Tesalona, a sixth-grader, shifted in her black Pumas and hot-pink socks as she explained that she plans to join the military. “I don’t want to go to war, but I want to help people who are injured,” she says. Her brother is a Marine who just returned from Iraq. “He’s very brave.”
Sixth-grader Jacklyn Rivas wants to join the Army, like her aunt, so that she can help people. Classmate Johnie Martinez has wanted to be a Green Beret, “since I was a little kid.”
“I used to watch the Military Channel when I was like 2.”
Shayne Brooks, a fifth-grader with rimless glasses, said he wants to join the Air Force to continue his retired grandfather’s legacy: “I want to be up in the air; I want to see everything that’s going on.”
– Lisa Gartner
