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Thursday, April 13, 2006
Staff Sgt. Bobby Hollar taught them a lot. The hardest lesson, they had to learn without him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The students at Crescent Elementary School in Griffin remember their pen pal as the smiling soldier who popped into their classroom one day last May, wearing his new mint green uniform and desert combat boots — a real-life GI Joe.
With his 1-year-old son, Wesley, at his side, Staff Sgt. Bobby Hollar brought the students pepperoni and cheese pizzas. He told them about his upcoming mission in Iraq with Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team and signed autographs.
A postal carrier in civilian life, the 35-year-old soldier from Thomaston knew the magic of mail that arrives from afar. He pledged to write the students.
And then he was gone.
The e-mails, postcards and photos from Iraq started arriving at the school in August. Hollar wrote of Iraq’s 125-degree heat. He described Iraqi children playing soccer.
“They call it football. We see them playing almost every day,” he wrote.
The children responded with their own letters, written on lined notebook paper: “Don’t be scared because you are gonna be all right.” “Do Iraqi people ride bikes or do they walk?” “Thank you for saving us.” Some drew pictures of bright yellow suns, red hearts and U.S. flags. They closed their cards with “love.”
From Hollar the students learned about soldiering. They learned about the war in Iraq. They learned that many children there live in poverty.
‘You mean he is dead?’
They also learned a more difficult lesson, one that made the war closer and more real.
At the start of September a packet of the students’ letters came back from Iraq, bearing an official stamp: “Return to Sender. Left No Address.”
The school year was just a few weeks old. Hollar’s pen pals were fifth-graders by then. On Sept. 2, Katie Cobb assembled her fourth-grade students — and the fifth-graders she had taught the year before. With a guidance counselor alongside, Cobb began the lesson she hoped she would never have to teach. She told her students their friend had hit a bomb.
“And unfortunately, he didn’t make it,” she told them.
She recalls a young boy asking, “You mean he is dead?”
Hollar and Sgt. George Ray Draughn, 29, a Coca-Cola delivery driver from Hiram, were fatally wounded when their Humvee hit an insurgent’s roadside bomb south of Baghdad. They were members of the Griffin-based Echo Troop, 108th Cavalry Regiment.
The news stunned the youngsters crowding Cobb’s classroom. Some were expecting to hear they were getting a new letter from Hollar. Others said they knew something was wrong because Cobb was red-faced and appeared upset.
“Everybody in the class started crying really hard,” said Caylee Wilson, 10, a fifth-grader who had given Hollar her camouflage “Courage” bracelet for good luck when he visited.
When the students were dismissed for recess that day, they moped around outside instead of playing. One boy vowed revenge against Hollar’s killers.
Cobb and the principal sent letters home to the children’s parents. They offered counseling. One evening later that month, several kids stood in a grocery store parking lot near their school and watched the hearse bearing Hollar’s body drive by. Some saluted and waved U.S. flags.
“I wanted to see the car go by. I was sad. I missed him,” said Lesley Hitson, 10, a fourth-grader.
Lesley’s 10-year-old classmate, Tiffany Holloway, attended Hollar’s funeral the next day, Sept. 11.
“It was sad. My mom started crying. I wanted to go because of what he did for our freedom,” Tiffany said. “And I wanted to support him in some way.”
On Thursday afternoon the students honored Hollar, who was promoted posthumously to sergeant first class, on what would have been his 36th birthday. They dedicated a freshly planted magnolia tree in his memory near the school’s main entrance. The students sang “Proud to Be an American” and unveiled a granite plaque with Hollar’s name on it.
Another friend to write to
Hollar’s parents and his widow, Amanda, met the children for the first time at the ceremony. Since her husband died, the students have been sending Amanda letters telling her, “We miss him,” “We are praying for you,” “We are sorry he died.” Amanda led the children in singing “Happy Birthday” to her husband. She said she had seen him in a dream, wearing his postal uniform, the night before.
“He is probably looking down on us right now,” Ryan Ragsdale, 10, a fourth-grader, told Amanda.
“He probably is,” she replied. “I know he is proud of what you all have done.”
After the ceremony, the students showed Amanda something else that helps them remember their friend. They have dedicated a wall in their classroom to Hollar. Just to the right of the door are the postcards, e-mails and photos he sent from Iraq. A girl inched up to Amanda and hugged her as she studied the wall.
Around the corner is a new display of letters and photos. The children have started a pen pal relationship with one of Hollar’s friends from the same unit.
Staff Sgt. Rex A. Duke, of Locust Grove, visited the classroom while he was on leave from Iraq the week before Thanksgiving. They asked Duke what kind of gun he carried. They asked him whether he was afraid. He told them he missed Hollar.
And then he was gone.
The children are expecting Duke to return from Iraq before the school year ends. They’re waiting expectantly for him to step through that classroom door one more time.
