Graduation can be tough with parent deployed

[unhappycamper]

Graduation can be tough with parent deployed
By Kristin M. Hall - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 23, 2008 8:39:56 EDT

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — When Evelyn Burwell put on a cap and gown to accept her high school diploma, she knew someone wasn’t in the audience — her dad.

The 18-year-old’s father is serving in Iraq, like so many other parents of her classmates at Fort Campbell High School, the largest high school on an American military base. His service has meant missing two of his children’s high school graduations, countless anniversaries and birthdays, and this year, his daughter being crowned prom queen.

“You don’t even have to explain it most of the time; everybody feels the same way,” Burwell said.

She and the other students here understand their parents’ sacrifice, and there is an unspoken bond that allows them to vent their frustrations about the war and deployments. They may be graduating like millions of others across the country this spring, but their memories of school life in wartime set the class of 116 teenagers apart.

Most had at least one parent gone on lengthy deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan. Former classmates have gone on to fight, some dying in service. Students have watched as uniformed soldiers came to neighbors’ homes to notify families of war deaths.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_wargrads_052308/



uhc comment: Welcome to bushWorld, where you fight forever for tuth, justice, and the corporate way.