Pride is a word often heard during graduation season, and to bask in academic achievement is something our students richly deserve.
We also seek to celebrate student sports success, and with schools like Milton High recently winning baseball and ladies lacrosse state championships, smiling pictures of highly accomplished athletes don all sorts of publications.
And while I have no problem when school newsletters show photo after photo of “signed” athletes posing with family, coaches and staff who are justly proud that such students have gained college athletic scholarships, I do have a problem when our schools neglect to also recognize those students demonstrating the courage to choose a different path – that of the military.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a Milton City Council meeting and was pleased that councilman Bill Lusk, himself a military veteran, took action when he heard area high schools were not having any sort of ceremony to honor students gaining appointments to the military academies, for earning Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) college scholarships, or for making the courageous choice to enlist.
“I was astounded to hear that students were not being honored at the high schools,” Lusk told me. “The military is a respectable calling, and we need to remind the public to appreciate what freedom - pursuing it and sustaining it – is all about.”
I was also able to speak with Terry Allen, who along with his wife, Kim, will soon be sending their son, Noah, off to the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. – one of the most selective colleges in the nation. Noah, a defensive end for Milton High School’s football team, had offers from other Division I schools, but chose to utilize the full athletic scholarship offered by West Point.
“We are very proud of him because this was a tough decision,” Allen said. “But the reason he chose West Point is to serve his country and team and put his achievements into leadership and responsibility.”
Many students like Noah gaining appointments to Army, Navy and Air Force Academies, as well as students winning tuition-paying ROTC scholarships, are bright and accomplished enough to have been offered other college options than military. In many cases, they could have used the HOPE scholarship at a Georgia school, forgoing the years of committed military service asked by their country.
In similar fashion, students who choose to enlist in the Army, Navy/Coast Guard, Marines or Air Force could have instead chosen a career path closer to home and much less likely to put them in danger.
College and career success requires hard work, but for a student to deliberately pick the arduous path of military training, with its rigorous physical, mental and intellectual requirements, takes the sort of courage we absolutely need to recognize – and celebrate – in our community.
As Councilman Lusk’s Proclamation points out: “These students have displayed exemplary character…at a time in their lives when such an important choice as this is uncommon.”
Veronica Buckman has been a resident of Milton for nine years. You can reach her at vrbuck01@aol.com
