The Load just put up some quality posts, so it motivated me to write one. November seems to have flown by, I can't believe this is my first post for the month. A couple of weeks ago, on Veteran's day, I went to my daughter's school for career day. I was speaking to 5th and 6th graders. It was an interesting time. The whole thing kicked off with a player from the Redskins. He kind of rambled all over the place about how tough it is to make it, how he nearly failed out of high school and his plan to open a high end lounge in NYC. The kids seemed to enjoy it though. After his speech, we rotated from classroom to classroom. We had a 15 minute block in each classroom to talk about what we did. Some of the highlights:
1. Every kid who had a familiy member or friend that was in the military asked me if I knew the person. Often they would just give me the first name too, so on a couple of occasions if they asked me if I knew "Joe" or "John" I could honestly say I did. However, I am pretty sure it was not the same person. Sometimes they would even ask if I knew someone that had served in the Vietnam war and had left the military 30 years ago.
2. I should have planned out what I was going to say a bit more. Most of the time, they started in with questions almost immediately. They all wanted to know about my time in Afghanistan and whether I had shot anyone. Unfortunately, my time over there wasn't that glamorous. They also wanted to know if I had been shot at. Technically, I had been, but the story is not that exciting. During our first couple of days we had a car bomb go off near the main gate and later that day we were ordered into the bunkers. We found out that we were ordered into the bunkers because two landowners near the base were having a dispute and firing rounds at each other. Some of these rounds were landing inside the base. The funniest part about all of this is that we hadn't been issued ammunition yet. So there were a bunch of us, in the military, who were outgunned by the local poplace! I had been in the gym when the car bomb went off. I was there with some Army guys that were part of the quick reaction force or QRF. These are the guys who are on call to respond to immediate threats. The bomb goes off and these guys gear up and start running to the front gate. I ran with them, not really thinking, for a few steps, until I realized that I didn't have my body armor on or any ammunition. So I went back to the gym.
I did get two injuries while over there, both minor, both sort of funny. The first one (I have previously written about) was when I was running the fence line at a base near the Pakistani border. Some local kids were running with me and we were having a great time. At least I thought we were. One of them decided it would be fun to throw a rock at me. It was a hell of a throw because he cleared the fence and hit me square on the dome while I was running. They all scattered after that. The special forces medic who checked me out afterwards told me that I should have shot the kids. I am pretty sure I would be in the brig if I had. The second injury happened during a heated volleball game. We weren't outside, Top Gun style. Rather, it was inside a gym. The court wasn't exactly regulation, and just beyond the out-line was a wall. I was going for a hot, did not keep my bearings and ran right into the wall. My glasses cut into my face and there was a fair amount of blood.
3. It was interesting what the kids focused on. In one class, I mentioned briefly that one of the things we do is prepare wills for people. The entire rest of the class was lots of questions about how specific you can be in your will (like can you specify what music is played at your funeral and what dance people have to do). I liked this question because it assumed that there would be dancing at the funeral. I then talked to them about assets that pass outside of probate and the ability for the surviving spouse to renounce the will if he/she is not happy with the share left to him or her. Personally, I find drafting wills to be one of the more boring things that we do, but these kids couldn't get enough of it.
4. I got to meet Silvio's older brother! Some interesting things about this guy, he too was the biggest kid in class and had even more hair than Silvio. It must have been shoulder length, pretty unkempt as well. It was a relatively cold day and he was wearing shorts and a vest, not as outlandishly colored as Silvio's but still pretty good. My favorite part was that I began my little speech and he immediately interrupted me and told me to write my name on the board. I was hoping he would have some bizarre questions, but he never followed up. He was just there to enforce the rules.
5. I couldn't be 100% honest, or at least I didn't feel it was appropriate. When they asked about what kind of cases I worked on, I left out the ones that we do the most - child pornography and sexual assault. I can only imagine the flak the school would get into if I had opened that can of worms. They did have a ton of questions about espionage and treason, but we don't get too many of those cases, fortunately. I wouldn't mind trying a case like that, although it would likely be a lot of work because of classified materials. I only worked one case where classified information was an issue, and it was a rather minor one. What I found interesting about it is that the individual that owns the document can refuse to disclose it. Of course the charges would likely be dismissed, but it is interesting that the owner of the document can derail the whole proceeding.
6. One of the girls in the class is our next door neighbor and when I pointed that out to the class she apparently became a bit of a celebrity. She told us about it the next week. I felt like a bit of a celebrity because a bunch of kids wanted my autograph. First time that has ever happened. It was interesting because some had sheets of paper to collect all the signatures of the various presenters, others just tried to find any random bit of paper. I signed post-it notes, backs of receipts, old tests, you name it.
7. Most of the teachers didn't really pay much attention, I think they were trying to take care of some work. However, this one teacher was great. I had met him briefly when I went to School with Bella, he was the gym teacher. He ran the gym class pretty strictly. He did not run the career day very strictly though, he wanted to spend the whole time talking about the movie "A few good men" and doing the famous "You can't handle the truth" line. I don't think any of the kids had seen it though.
All in all, a pretty fun time. As I was leaving the school I walked by the cafeteria and good old Silvio was there and motioned for me to come in and talk to him. Unfortunately Bella wasn't there, but still always fun to see Silvio. He wasn't wearing a vest, but he did have his hair in a crazy mohawk with what looked like a ton of hair gel holding it all together!
No comments:
Post a Comment