December 2017 | Vol. 17 Iss. 12
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MURRAY STUDENTS HONOR VETERANS AT SCHOOL CEREMONIES By Julie Slama | Julie@mycityjournals.com
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cMillan fifth-grader Evan Kulp was excited when his classmates were learning “Anchors Aweigh” in preparation for the school’s third annual Veterans’ Day program. He had grown up hearing the song that honors the Navy from his grandfather, Charlie Kulp, who had served as a medical corpsman during Desert Storm. “He has a bottle cap opener that plays the music and then, he sings along,” Evan said. “I wanted us to sing the whole song to impress him and make him happy.” Evan, and his second-grade brother, Aidan, also had their great-grandfather, 98-year-old Albert Marshall Vice on stage
with other veterans being honored. As part of the “Big Red One,” Vice shared with students that he was in the fifth-hour wave landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day. “It was a special time for them and we’re thankful for what they did for our country,” Evan said. Evan, who has seen his grandfather’s military medals, knows his great-grandfather served in North Africa and Sicily before France, and knows he trained for Normandy in Belfast, North Ireland, where he met his wife, Etta, whom he married after the war. But he, nor many family members, hadn’t heard all the first-
World War II veteran Ray Clark brought a photo of his unit, the 90th division, 344th field artillery for Longview students to see during the school’s first Veterans’ Day program. Clark, in his service days, is seen above the green sticky note. (Chad Sanders/Longview Elementary)
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hand accounts of Vice’s time in the service. That’s because for years he didn’t talk about his experience. “When he was discharged after the war, he was told, ‘Don’t talk about the war, but go back to your lives and jobs and carry on,’” said Vice’s daughter Pam Hutchinson. Some details of his service came out when Hutchinson and her husband took Vice, who served as a staff sergeant during the Battle of the Bulge, back to Normandy in 1987, where he was honored at the Memorial of Caen for liberating France and later, walked along Omaha Beach. He also talked at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City on the 70th anniversary of D-Day. “His unit was let out in the water, which was deeper than they thought, and they made it to the beach that was on fire from all the missiles,” Hutchinson said, adding that Vice wanted to protect his troops from not only the gun fire, but also from the Germans who hid in the hedgerows along the beach. “It’s still extremely difficult for him to talk about it.” The program, which fifth-grade teacher Julianne Curtis FaceTimed to her parents in Oklahoma since her father served in the Air Force in Japan, included other songs from military branches and patriotic songs interspersed by school essay-winners. Sixth-grader Alyssa Harlin wrote a poem in honor of the veterans. It began with, “He went to the ocean, with tears in his eyes as he left his wife and children and said his good-byes.” “I wanted to show my appreciation for these veterans and all the people who fought for our freedoms — our heroes,” she said. There were services at Woodstock Elementary as well as at Longview Elementary, where another stage full of veterans were thanked for their service and sacrifice in the school’s first Veterans’ Day assembly. Continued on Page 7...
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