06-07-2014, 12:22 AM
Just found out something today...
An older gentleman, "John", at work... he works as a crossing guard in the afternoons, and does some volunteer work besides. We all knew he was a WWII vet - that gives you an idea of his age...
This afternoon, apparently, some folks were in the Staff Room (the teachers lounge, most would say)... and someone mentioned D-Day.
For the first time anyone can remember, he mentioned what he was doing on June 6, 1944.
He was hitting Omaha Beach about two hours after the first landing craft.
None of us had any idea. We knew he was a European Theater veteran, but not what he did.
I had a lot of respect for John before... he's a great guy, a model citizen in every respect, and a role model for the kids...
But my respect for him is a whole level higher than it was.
Word spreads quickly... I wasn't there, but it made it through the "grapevine" pretty fast...
Side Story about John;
A couple years ago, we got a new Student Information System (database for student/teacher/grade data)... We noticed we couldn't get a staff employment report, and couldn't figure out why.
After two hours of back and forth calls to the company - they figured out why.
They had used some sort of date calculation for the report, and it was simply not prepared to accept birth dates for current school employees of prior to 1930! :-)
They fixed it with their next release!
An older gentleman, "John", at work... he works as a crossing guard in the afternoons, and does some volunteer work besides. We all knew he was a WWII vet - that gives you an idea of his age...
This afternoon, apparently, some folks were in the Staff Room (the teachers lounge, most would say)... and someone mentioned D-Day.
For the first time anyone can remember, he mentioned what he was doing on June 6, 1944.
He was hitting Omaha Beach about two hours after the first landing craft.
None of us had any idea. We knew he was a European Theater veteran, but not what he did.
I had a lot of respect for John before... he's a great guy, a model citizen in every respect, and a role model for the kids...
But my respect for him is a whole level higher than it was.
Word spreads quickly... I wasn't there, but it made it through the "grapevine" pretty fast...
Side Story about John;
A couple years ago, we got a new Student Information System (database for student/teacher/grade data)... We noticed we couldn't get a staff employment report, and couldn't figure out why.
After two hours of back and forth calls to the company - they figured out why.
They had used some sort of date calculation for the report, and it was simply not prepared to accept birth dates for current school employees of prior to 1930! :-)
They fixed it with their next release!