thedrifter
05-18-06, 05:50 AM
Kids turn tables on Marines
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 05/18/06
BY JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
BEACHWOOD — Ten-year-old Justin Wagner had a question for Gunnery Sgt. Chris Randazzo, one of four U.S. Marines who visited Beachwood Elementary School Wednesday.
"Why are we fighting in Iraq?" Wagner, a fifth-grader, asked.
Randazzo, a Marine reservist from the Red Bank-based 6th Motor Transport Battalion, spent seven months in Iraq, returning in April. He thought for a moment before answering Wagner's question.
"In Iraq there are some bad people, and they still are there," Randazzo, 45, a Sea Girt resident, said. "They are not just from Iraq, but from other countries around there. We have to be there to make sure the good people in Iraq are safe."
Fifth-grader Nicholas Haberstroh, 11, had his hand up, too.
"Do you have any friends in the Army?" he asked.
Randazzo said he did have friends in several other branches of the service, although he asserted proudly that the Marines were the best. "You're like a team," he said of the military. "Does one person win a game? No. It takes the whole team."
The spirited question-and-answer session came near the end of Wednesday's assembly at the elementary school, at which Randazzo, Staff Sgt. Jack Santelli, Cpl. Teresa Fernandez, and Dick Gilbert, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, came to Beachwood to thank students for their strong support of troops in Iraq.
But the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, who were part of last year's communitywide effort to send care packages overseas, wanted to return the favor and thank the Marines for their service to the country. The fifth-graders performed a dance for the Marines and also sang Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." for them.
Fifth-grader Maureen Gearity, 10, closed the program by playing "Taps" on her silver flute before a color guard bearing the state and American flags marched out of the gymnasium to the strains of the "Marine Corps Hymn."
Principal Maureen Zuck said Gilbert, a Beachwood resident who fought and was wounded in Korea, heard about the efforts of the students, the Parent-Teacher Organization, the Beachwood Policemen's Benevolent Association and local businesses, who banded together to send hundreds of boxes of supplies to Marines from the 2nd Air Wing Division.
That division included some Marines from Dover Township. The division was stationed in Baghdad and in Anbar Province last year.
"The great thing about it was that the whole community made it a yearlong effort to support the troops," Zuck said. Children also sent cards on Valentine's Day and during the Christmas holidays to the troops, and sent items such as Gatorade, dry sausages, canned soup, toiletries and magazines.
Gilbert contacted Santelli, public affairs officer from the 6th Motor Transport Battalion, and asked if some Marines from the battalion could come to Beachwood to thank the children.
Zuck said the children decided to turn it around, and say thank you themselves.
"It's a mutual "thank you,' " Zuck said.
The Marines, who received T-shirts emblazoned with the Beachwood Bears mascot, told the children that their cards, letters and supplies definitely helped lift the spirits of the troops in Iraq.
"When you are in Iraq, you look forward to sleep, mail and food," said Fernandez, 22, of Roselle. "If you get mail and food at the same time, it makes you very happy."
Fernandez received a Purple Heart after she was burned over 13 percent of her body on June 23, 2005, outside Fallujah, when three female Marines and three male Marines were killed when insurgents followed up a roadside bomb explosion with an ambush that included small-arms fire.
Ellie
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 05/18/06
BY JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
BEACHWOOD — Ten-year-old Justin Wagner had a question for Gunnery Sgt. Chris Randazzo, one of four U.S. Marines who visited Beachwood Elementary School Wednesday.
"Why are we fighting in Iraq?" Wagner, a fifth-grader, asked.
Randazzo, a Marine reservist from the Red Bank-based 6th Motor Transport Battalion, spent seven months in Iraq, returning in April. He thought for a moment before answering Wagner's question.
"In Iraq there are some bad people, and they still are there," Randazzo, 45, a Sea Girt resident, said. "They are not just from Iraq, but from other countries around there. We have to be there to make sure the good people in Iraq are safe."
Fifth-grader Nicholas Haberstroh, 11, had his hand up, too.
"Do you have any friends in the Army?" he asked.
Randazzo said he did have friends in several other branches of the service, although he asserted proudly that the Marines were the best. "You're like a team," he said of the military. "Does one person win a game? No. It takes the whole team."
The spirited question-and-answer session came near the end of Wednesday's assembly at the elementary school, at which Randazzo, Staff Sgt. Jack Santelli, Cpl. Teresa Fernandez, and Dick Gilbert, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, came to Beachwood to thank students for their strong support of troops in Iraq.
But the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, who were part of last year's communitywide effort to send care packages overseas, wanted to return the favor and thank the Marines for their service to the country. The fifth-graders performed a dance for the Marines and also sang Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." for them.
Fifth-grader Maureen Gearity, 10, closed the program by playing "Taps" on her silver flute before a color guard bearing the state and American flags marched out of the gymnasium to the strains of the "Marine Corps Hymn."
Principal Maureen Zuck said Gilbert, a Beachwood resident who fought and was wounded in Korea, heard about the efforts of the students, the Parent-Teacher Organization, the Beachwood Policemen's Benevolent Association and local businesses, who banded together to send hundreds of boxes of supplies to Marines from the 2nd Air Wing Division.
That division included some Marines from Dover Township. The division was stationed in Baghdad and in Anbar Province last year.
"The great thing about it was that the whole community made it a yearlong effort to support the troops," Zuck said. Children also sent cards on Valentine's Day and during the Christmas holidays to the troops, and sent items such as Gatorade, dry sausages, canned soup, toiletries and magazines.
Gilbert contacted Santelli, public affairs officer from the 6th Motor Transport Battalion, and asked if some Marines from the battalion could come to Beachwood to thank the children.
Zuck said the children decided to turn it around, and say thank you themselves.
"It's a mutual "thank you,' " Zuck said.
The Marines, who received T-shirts emblazoned with the Beachwood Bears mascot, told the children that their cards, letters and supplies definitely helped lift the spirits of the troops in Iraq.
"When you are in Iraq, you look forward to sleep, mail and food," said Fernandez, 22, of Roselle. "If you get mail and food at the same time, it makes you very happy."
Fernandez received a Purple Heart after she was burned over 13 percent of her body on June 23, 2005, outside Fallujah, when three female Marines and three male Marines were killed when insurgents followed up a roadside bomb explosion with an ambush that included small-arms fire.
Ellie