thedrifter
03-24-06, 07:34 AM
IT WAS JUST UNREAL': After 38 years, Marines welcomed home
Oak Park school lauds 2 of its own for Vietnam duty
BY FRANK WITSIL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
March 24, 2006
It took 38 years, but Vietnam veteran Chuck Lemke got the hero's welcome he had hoped for, thanks to an Oak Park school.
Lemke's celebration came Thursday morning in the Norup School gym after weeks of lessons on history, civics, patriotism, music -- and life.
Assistant principal Vince Gigliotti lured Lemke, the school's 60-year-old head custodian, into the gym by telling him that he needed to fix the microphone for an assembly. Lemke didn't know that the assembly was to honor him until he heard the eighth-grade band strike up the Marine Corps Hymn.
As Lemke walked into the gym with Bob Johnson, another Vietnam veteran who is a teacher's aide, the school's 520 students in third through eighth grades and their teachers stood up and burst into applause and cheers. Johnson, who also served in the Marines, was honored during the assembly, too.
"It was unreal," Lemke said, beaming after the assembly. "It was just unreal."
For Lemke, this was the conclusion of a two-week journey back to Vietnam that he had taken earlier this month with his wife, one of his daughters, and other veterans and their families. He went on the trip, organized by a Vietnam veterans group, nearly 40 years after he enlisted in the Marines. Lemke e-mailed the school during his tour, and kept them abreast of his travels.
For the students and teachers, this was the final test to an interdisciplinary approach to learning.
The idea, Gigliotti said, began as a simple one a few weeks ago as a way to honor Lemke for his military service when he returned from his trip. However, as the teachers and administrators considered how they would do this, the project evolved. To fully appreciate such a celebration, school principal Barb Kirschenheiter said, the students needed more context.
"We had to help the kids understand the Vietnam War," she said.
A Detroit native who grew up in Berkley, Lemke is one of 274,049 Vietnam veterans in Michigan, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. He said he joined the military because he thought it would be a matter of time before he would be drafted. He served as a grunt in Vietnam from June 1967 to May 1968. He was awarded a Purple Heart.
When he returned home to Berkley, the discharged corporal said, he felt tension with many of the people he thought he had fought to protect. He put his uniform and medals in a box -- and kept his thoughts about the war to himself.
In 1970, Lemke married a young widow, Susanne, whose husband died fighting in Vietnam. The couple had three children, and Lemke went to work in a bank.
But, he said, in the 1980s he began suffering from bouts of deep depression, nightmares and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He eventually quit his job.
Lemke started working as a custodian for the Berkley School District about 10 years ago.
To prepare the students for Thursday's assembly, the teachers read the younger students a children's book about the Vietnam War, and showed the older ones a documentary. They led students in discussions about how the conflict in Vietnam was similar -- and different -- from the current conflict in Iraq.
The choir practiced singing the national anthem. The band rehearsed a medley of patriotic music.
At the assembly, students showered Lemke with gratitude.
Ashley Bey, 10, read Lemke her letter to the audience: "Dear Mr. Lemke. Welcome back to the Norup staff. The students missed you. Thank you for helping orphans and kids just like us. Thank you for making our school clean and successful. But most of all, thank you for helping the world be a better place."
"It's not reading out of a book," added Steve Lyskawa, 36, a teacher. "When these kids realized it was going to be for someone they knew, someone they see every day, it made it real."
And after the assembly, Lemke said he was glad he took the trip.
"It was just so peaceful and beautiful there," he said. "I feel like I was unloading a burden that I had been carrying around for a long time.
"This," he said Thursday of his homecoming, "completed it."
Contact FRANK WITSIL at 248-351-3690 or witsil@freepress.com.
Oak Park school lauds 2 of its own for Vietnam duty
BY FRANK WITSIL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
March 24, 2006
It took 38 years, but Vietnam veteran Chuck Lemke got the hero's welcome he had hoped for, thanks to an Oak Park school.
Lemke's celebration came Thursday morning in the Norup School gym after weeks of lessons on history, civics, patriotism, music -- and life.
Assistant principal Vince Gigliotti lured Lemke, the school's 60-year-old head custodian, into the gym by telling him that he needed to fix the microphone for an assembly. Lemke didn't know that the assembly was to honor him until he heard the eighth-grade band strike up the Marine Corps Hymn.
As Lemke walked into the gym with Bob Johnson, another Vietnam veteran who is a teacher's aide, the school's 520 students in third through eighth grades and their teachers stood up and burst into applause and cheers. Johnson, who also served in the Marines, was honored during the assembly, too.
"It was unreal," Lemke said, beaming after the assembly. "It was just unreal."
For Lemke, this was the conclusion of a two-week journey back to Vietnam that he had taken earlier this month with his wife, one of his daughters, and other veterans and their families. He went on the trip, organized by a Vietnam veterans group, nearly 40 years after he enlisted in the Marines. Lemke e-mailed the school during his tour, and kept them abreast of his travels.
For the students and teachers, this was the final test to an interdisciplinary approach to learning.
The idea, Gigliotti said, began as a simple one a few weeks ago as a way to honor Lemke for his military service when he returned from his trip. However, as the teachers and administrators considered how they would do this, the project evolved. To fully appreciate such a celebration, school principal Barb Kirschenheiter said, the students needed more context.
"We had to help the kids understand the Vietnam War," she said.
A Detroit native who grew up in Berkley, Lemke is one of 274,049 Vietnam veterans in Michigan, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. He said he joined the military because he thought it would be a matter of time before he would be drafted. He served as a grunt in Vietnam from June 1967 to May 1968. He was awarded a Purple Heart.
When he returned home to Berkley, the discharged corporal said, he felt tension with many of the people he thought he had fought to protect. He put his uniform and medals in a box -- and kept his thoughts about the war to himself.
In 1970, Lemke married a young widow, Susanne, whose husband died fighting in Vietnam. The couple had three children, and Lemke went to work in a bank.
But, he said, in the 1980s he began suffering from bouts of deep depression, nightmares and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He eventually quit his job.
Lemke started working as a custodian for the Berkley School District about 10 years ago.
To prepare the students for Thursday's assembly, the teachers read the younger students a children's book about the Vietnam War, and showed the older ones a documentary. They led students in discussions about how the conflict in Vietnam was similar -- and different -- from the current conflict in Iraq.
The choir practiced singing the national anthem. The band rehearsed a medley of patriotic music.
At the assembly, students showered Lemke with gratitude.
Ashley Bey, 10, read Lemke her letter to the audience: "Dear Mr. Lemke. Welcome back to the Norup staff. The students missed you. Thank you for helping orphans and kids just like us. Thank you for making our school clean and successful. But most of all, thank you for helping the world be a better place."
"It's not reading out of a book," added Steve Lyskawa, 36, a teacher. "When these kids realized it was going to be for someone they knew, someone they see every day, it made it real."
And after the assembly, Lemke said he was glad he took the trip.
"It was just so peaceful and beautiful there," he said. "I feel like I was unloading a burden that I had been carrying around for a long time.
"This," he said Thursday of his homecoming, "completed it."
Contact FRANK WITSIL at 248-351-3690 or witsil@freepress.com.