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Stories of Service |
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Chronicling the 'Greatest Generation' May 9, 2008 Ghostly black and white footage of bombs exploding and young men fleeing for their lives flickers across rows of computer screens in Darren Yafai's history class. Those young men that made it back from World War II alive are in their 80s now, and dying at a rate of one every 90 seconds. That's why 165 of Yafai's Gilroy High School sophomores have spent months searching out, interviewing and immortalizing local members of the "Greatest Generation." Twenty-six veterans, 26 stories of service. From fighter pilots to Holocaust survivors, each veteran has a story to tell. When he was barely older than the students with whom he's sharing his life story, Bud Burchell, now 82, dropped out of high school and spent the next two years underwater, patrolling the South Pacific in a submarine. After rigorous intelligence, physical fitness and psychological testing, "we got the USDA Grade A stamp," Burchell said, his snowy white hair spilling out from underneath his Navy cap. As a quartermaster signalman, he used Morse code to signal other ships and remembers how the adrenaline flowed when spotting an enemy ship. On his sub, he learned honesty, integrity and gained a sense of esprit de corps with his fellow seamen. After all, he spent 30 to 45 days at a time confined with them. "I don't regret a bit of it," Burchell said. He spoke highly of several of his fellow submariners. Yafai set out on an ambitious endeavor when introducing the project to his class and seeking out veterans like Burchell. Stories of Service is a program of the Digital Clubhouse Network, a national nonprofit that mobilizes young people to produce digital stories about those who served. The stories have been showcased on various Web sites, including the History Channel's. However, most teachers and organizations decide to produce only a handful of stories. Yafai, on the other hand, found 26. "This intrepid teacher is setting an example for the rest of the country," said Warren Hegg, founder and president of the Digital Clubhouse Network. "Gilroy High School is the only school in America that's taken on more than two or three stories. It's not the typical term paper. Some of them (the stories) will bring you to tears, they're so poetic."
"There was a little anxiety at first," he said. "The veterans helped alleviate that. To get the teens and vets to sit down and bond … they can only get so much from the text and my lecture." Not only are the students getting a first hand dose of history, they are learning about video production and script-writing in the meantime. They have to boil their stories down to a five-minute movie. They write the script and have their veteran read while photos and video of their lives play. The movies will premiere at a May 22 reception at the Gilroy Police Department, dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal Jeremy Ailes, a graduate of GHS who was killed in Iraq at 22. |
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Veterans’ Stories now available online at The Gilroy Dispatch: Jack Sturla
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Yafai's classroom is plastered with war memorabilia. Model airplanes swing over the students' heads and a masking tape map of war era Europe is underfoot, stuck to the floor with little green Army men and tanks positioned to show the different fronts.
