VETERANS DAY: Gwinnett students salute U.S. troops

At precisely 9:30 a.m., 230 fifth-graders filed into the Sycamore Elementary School gymnasium.

They wore red, white and blue T-shirts with their Sugar Hill school’s name emblazoned across their chests in the form of an American flag.

Charles Simpson, Clem Childs and about 40 other military veterans waited in front-row seats marked reserved. Some were stooped with age. Some were young and fit. All of them were worthy of the honor students, teachers and school administrators had gathered to bestow.

Simpson, 76, of Conyers proudly noted the diversity in the parade of students taking their places on risers.

“That’s what this is all about,” the former Navy tail gunner said. “Despite what some would have us believe, that’s America. We should all unite and come together like these kids have. They set a wonderful example.”

With song and the recitation of history, with certificates of honor and gold medals bearing an eagle, a school and a community had come together to observe Veterans Day.

It was one of many ceremonies and events throughout metro Atlanta honoring America’s fighting men and women —- from parades in downtown Atlanta and Marietta to memorial services in Acworth to a 21-gun salute at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville to programs at several schools.

Back at Sycamore, fifth-grade teacher Linda Cashion looked on with pride. This was her idea, born when her own children, now adults, were about her students’ ages.

They lived in Alabama then and her father, 78-year-old Harold Bearden, a Korean War veteran, was among the honorees, she said.

“I witnessed how touched my dad was,” said Cashion.

And so when her family moved to metro Atlanta in 1995, Cashion decided she’d extend the honor to other veterans, first at Norton Elementary and now here at Sycamore, where she has spent the past three years.

“They think we’re doing something for them but they are giving children the chance to put faces and names to history,” Cashion said of her honored guests. “When they listen to them describe how their life was, it’s better than any textbook.”

Applause broke out as the students introduced and sang first the Army’s song, “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” then “The Marines’ Hymn,” followed by the Navy’s “Anchors Aweigh,” the Air Force’s “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder,” and “The Coast Guard Song.” Veterans from each branch stood together —- proud men and women who’d served back as far as World War II.

Then the moment to pay honor to each of their guests arrived. Silence fell over the crowded gym as their names and branch of service were called: Sandra Mills, Air Force; Alan Warrick, Navy; Thomas Paschall, Air Force; Ed Shaw, Army; Clem Childs, Navy.

Childs, 83, of Dunwoody said he’d normally be participating in the Veterans Day parade but had been asked to come to the school program by a former neighbor, 10-year-old Sydney Colvin.

When he was drafted into the Navy in 1943, Childs said the military and America were still segregated.

And when the war ended in 1945, after marching in a parade through downtown Chicago where he and comrades were welcomed home, Childs, an African-American, said he couldn’t even enter the University of Cincinnati where he’d grown up because of the color of his skin.

“It hurt,” he said.

Childs, however, went on to graduate from New York University with a degree in accounting.

Echoing Simpson’s sentiments, he said the ceremony had added meaning because of the changes he has witnessed, most notably a new commander in chief, President-elect Barack Obama, who looks like him and the little girl who invited him.

“What a turnaround in history,” he said. “I was so proud to see him go to the White House yesterday. It made my heart sing.”