WASHINGTON – D.C. fourth-graders got a real-life history lesson on the National Mall on Friday, the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Local veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan sat down with students from from Harriet Tubman Elementary School to talk about their experiences overseas and the meaning of service in an event put on by Points of Light.
“It’s an opportunity for them to learn,” Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, said of the event. “These are all 9- and 10-year-olds, and they weren’t born yet.”
Magnolia Sexton, a veteran, talked about the meaning of service and how serving could mean anything from being in the military to volunteering time in the community.
“The events of 9/11 definitely were a part of why I joined the military,” Sexton says. “I spent eight and a half years in the Marine Corps after that.”
To help them learn about the attacks and to do their own bit of service this Sept. 11, the students put together service books based on what they learned from the veterans. They covered their books with their own art, stickers and other designs that told the stories of the veterans.
These hand-illustrated books will be sent to families of those who died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They came up with some great art,” veteran Martin Wallace says. “They said ‘my veteran, my superhero.’ That put a big smile on my face.”
Spencer says these books will help children learn about what happened 14 years ago and will remind those who lost loved ones that the attack will never be forgotten.
“As America, we have to promise to never forget,” Spencer says.
