Early in the morning, as we were setting up the presentations in Scott’s empty classroom, our principal came on the loudspeaker to recite the pledge. “I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America…” To be standing there, in a Connecticut classroom, with my hand on my heart, surrounded by generations of men who had shouldered the burden of freedom for the world is a memory I will never forget.
My mind raced throughout the day as we heard people’s living history while surrounded by the trappings of a history classroom. Men in camouflage, standing in front of posters of the signers of our Declaration of Independence seemed particularly fitting.
I sat in the back while Sergeant Wilfred Cabana regaled our students with stories of Normandy Beach and German 88’s. All eyes were on the gravelly voiced octogenarian, in his full dress uniform, as he talked about the medals and citations he had received. Some stories, a lot of the stories the boys wanted to hear, he would not tell. He seemed to particularly enjoy telling us about the kindness of the people of the French countryside. His memory of an evening when a pair of mud-caked GI's were offered a hot bath in a wine cask by a scared French farmer and his young daughter made the Sergeant emotional every time he told the story.
I have four history sections so I listened to the same stories multiple times, and my mind began to wander. The history buff in me, with these Connecticut vets in front of me also thought of another Connecticut Yankee, Israel Putnam. Putnam, whose statue graces the grounds of our state house, has been credited with the phrase, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” A grisly veteran of many battles, Putnam knew the inaccurate nature of the American musket. He also knew for the Continentals to repel the Redcoat charges at Bunker Hill, the colonists would have to wait until those bayonets were gleaming, until they could hear the grunts of their adversaries heading up the hill, before firing.
Putnam’s story has always resonated in Connecticut as he literally left his plow in the field and grabbed his musket. According to the web site Connecticut Society for the Sons of the American Revolution, “The intelligence of the recent battles at Lexington and Concord roused the whole country in April of the following year. Putnam was employed in ploughing a field of Indian corn when the news reached him. He was swift to act. Leaving the cattle and plough in the furrow, not stopping to change his clothes, he mounted a fleet horse and was soon well on his way to Cambridge, which he reached at sunrise the next morning, and his gallant steed galloped into Concord later the same day. At the same time that George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief, Putnam was made brigadier-general and given command of the army-center at Cambridge.”
I continued to watch the eager eyes of my students and I thought of how we had recently discussed Nathan Hale, another forerunner to these Connecticut vets. Most of you know the story of Nathan Hale, barely in his twenties when George Washington asked him to spy on the British in New York City. After getting caught and tried for treason, as we were still British Colonies then, Hale was sentenced to be hung. All Connecticut students can recite his famous words, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
A Yale graduate in the 1770’s, Nathan Hale became a teacher in New London, CT. But the cause of Liberty had a strong pull on the young school master. Nathan put down his books and his chalk to fight the greatest military power in the world at that time, the British empire. In a hasty farewell address to his students as he was leaving for Boston, Hale said, “Let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence.”
Nathan Hale, not only was one of the first to mention our fight for independence, but also was at the vanguard for women’s rights. The Connecticut Society for SAR website also has an excellent biographical sketch of Nathan Hale. The site mentions that Hale went so far as to volunteer to teach the young women of the town on his own time. I bet there were a few cute ones I suppose. “And, in the arrangement of the Union School at New London, it was determined that between the hours of five and seven in the morning, he should teach a class of “twenty young ladies” in the studies which occupied their brothers at a later hour.”
How much has our country changed since 1774, when Nathan Hale was forced to teach these young ladies well before the sun rose? And now today, after years of struggling, we see everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote. Everyone who would like to, participating in our democracy, and if they choose, serving in the military.
Our military looks a lot different than it did in 1776. President Obama’s words recently at the memorial services for the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, seem to resonate. “They are man and woman; white, black and brown; of all faiths and all stations — all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.”
Listening to our president tell the stories of all 13 of the victims, it was the story of Amy Krueger that stood out for me. How similar her situation was to Israel Putnam, Nathan Hale or the waves of veterans who have put down plow and pen, hammer and firehose, to take up arms to protect freedoms around the world.
Amy Krueger, who joined the military after 9/11, as many before her had done in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Whose mother, Janet Krueger told this 20 year old from Keil, Wisconsin, “You know you can’t take on Osama Bin Laden all by yourself.” Only to hear her daughter, full of the bravado of the American soldier say, “Watch me.”
