Queensbury High School students hosted local veterans in roundtable discussions in early December to hear their stories of war.
Senior English students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme just finished reading Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” a collection of short stories about American soldiers in the Vietnam War.
“Charles was talking to us about the book, and he said the only thing fictional about the book was that it was fiction,” said Queensbury senior Aidan Brown. “He said that it was a very accurate representation of what he experienced and what a lot of other people experienced. That was very powerful to me.”
The veterans brought items like dog tags, hats and medals to show the students, who found the stories compelling.
“I think it offered a very unique perspective,” Aidan said. “I was talking to one of the veterans, Don, and when he was talking about the Vietnam memorial, he was saying that he personally didn’t want to go see the memorial because there were a lot of guys that last he knew they were alive, and he didn’t want to see names that he didn’t expect. It’s just so interesting to hear things like that.”
This event was born several years ago after a student questioned why veterans are not given more opportunities to tell their stories, said English teacher Kerri Bundy. The event was designed for students to listen and learn from the first-hand accounts of war.
“And then on the back end, the students are going to create art or fiction or stories out of the stories they’ve heard,” Bundy said, “and then we’ll give those back as gifts to the veterans.”
Before they left, the veterans received individual patriotic quilts from the Hudson River Piecemakers Quilt Guild.
