News : VSHS students continue tradition of Veterans Day tribute to area vets

Vets and students honor the flag as the color guard retires the colors at the end of the ceremony.

Megan Ternus and Logan Halstead play taps to honor America's fallen soldiers.

Fourth graders clasp hands as they sing in honor of America and local veterans Friday morning.

Benjamin Rush, an '03 graduate and USAF communications specialist, donated a flag to the school.

John Kelly introduces himself to the VS student body.

The student body filled the VSMS gym for the annual Veterans Day ceremony.

Vinton fourth graders sang 'America the Beautiful.'

Staff Sgt. Lindsey Landrus, between her grandparents, Leonard and Marlys Geater.

Veterans salute the students to acknowledge their standing ovation for them.

Denny Miller introduces himself.

Veterans sat together as students honored them for their service.

First grade students sing for the veterans Friday.

Kindergarteners and first graders wave flags as they sing 'When the flag goes by'

Jacob Bunge and Alyssa Cantrell sing the National Anthem.

Vinton-Shellsburg students, from kindergartners to high school seniors, stood to applaud the veterans.

The veterans responded by standing to salute the students.

Thus continued the Veterans Day tradition for Vinton-Shellsburg students Friday morning in the middle school gym, where the entire student body gathered to honor veterans.

Dozens of veterans, most wearing either military uniforms or caps or jackets representing a veterans organization, sat near the platform as students shared the history of veterans day, and sang songs honoring America and its soldiers.

Many of the veterans honored were former students from Vinton-Shellsburg (or from Vinton or Shellsburg before the 1989 merger). VSHS teacher and football coach Pat Farley, a former Marine, sat with the veterans and joined them in saluting the student body.

"I'm proud to be a Marine and proud to be a Vinton-Shellsburg Viking," Farley told the crowd.

The featured speaker was 2006 VSHS graduate Lindsey Landrus, an Air Force Staff Sergeant who served in hospitals in Afghanistan. Landrus told the audience how the military medical staff treat sick and wounded soldiers, Afghan nationals and prisoners of war. She said that enemy POWs are given the same care as U.S. soldiers.

Landrus told of a young Afghan girl who had survived an explosion and gunshot wound to the head, but was not breathing when she arrived at the hospital. That girl survived that first night, and kept surviving and recovering, and left the hospital before Landrus returned home.

"That girl changed my life," Landrus told the crowd.

The welcome that Landrus received when returning to America from her Middle East deployment made her feel like a hero.

"I have never had so many strangers shake my hand," she said.

Another VSHS graduate, Benjamin Rush, presented the school a flag that had flown during one of his missions. Rush is a communication specialist who told the audience that the flag was flown during a mission involving surveillance of a "high-value target."

VSHS senior Patrick Thompson was also recognized on behalf of his father, Anthony, who donated another flag that is already on display at the high school.

Students also learned about a World War I veteran with a connection to the school district.

Harry Fry was a soldier on the front lines of the Western Front in November of 1918. He wrote a letter to his best friend and girlfriend, Susie Campbell, describing how he felt as the Armistice was announced. He said that when the war officially ended, German troops came across the lines to shake hands with Americans and tell them how glad they were that that fighting was over. Fry and a few others then defied orders and crossed over to the German lines, where men who had been shooting at them just hours before offered them beer and cigarettes and other items. Fry told his girlfriend how happy he was to know that eventually he would be coming home.

The couple eventually married; one of their granddaughters is Mary Jo Hainstock, the VS Superintendent.

Student performances included:

National Anthem: VSHS students Jacob Bunge and Alyssa Cantrell.

'When the Flag Goes By' by Kindergarten and first grade students.

'In Flanders Field' by the eighth grade chorus.

'There are many flags in many lands' by the second and third grade students.

'Thank you, Soldiers,' by the Shellsburg fourth and fifth graders.

'America the Beautiful' by the Vinton fourth graders.

'Homage' by the VSHS Chamber Singers.

The playing of Taps by Megan Ternus and Logan Halstead.