Highland High School students connect with local veteran

Posted 2/12/20

Grade 11 students in Annmarie Meisel’s English class at Highland High School had the unique opportunity to make authentic real-world connections to their school learning with a special visitor. …

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Highland High School students connect with local veteran

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Grade 11 students in Annmarie Meisel’s English class at Highland High School had the unique opportunity to make authentic real-world connections to their school learning with a special visitor. Vietnam War veteran and author Richard Udden visited the school before the holidays and shared his experiences from before, during, and after the war. These experiences became his memoir, 21 Months, 24 Days: A Blue-Collar Kid’s Journey to the Vietnam War and Back.

Mr. Udden’s visit came about while Ms. Meisel’s class was reading Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, a poignant story about being a soldier in the Vietnam War. Student Arianna Sullivan mentioned to Ms. Meisel that her grandfather was also a soldier in Vietnam, and an author. Arianna then became a sort of liaison in bringing her grandfather to the school for his first-ever speaking engagement.

During his presentation, Mr. Udden shared pictures and stories and spoke to the students about what helped him survive the war and mitigate the PTSD he had after he returned home. At one point, Mr. Udden got very choked up recalling the death of his friend Steve. Their platoon was on a trek through a heavily mined area when a trip wire detonated, killing Steve and seriously injuring Udden (this is an injury for which he received a Purple Heart). It was an emotional moment that visibly affected the students.

“I had never even heard these stories before,” his granddaughter said.

Also moved was Simon Meisel. “Listening to Mr. Udden was not just informative but very emotional,” he said, “I think it’s important that we students realize the things we are learning about are not just abstract concepts in a text, but are human lives and human experiences.”

Ms. Meisel appreciated Mr. Udden’s understated demeanor, a style she thought students were able to relate to. “Mr. Udden humbly does not consider himself a writer, but instead wanted students to know he was just an average guy who had a story to tell. He was patient and warm. His slideshow was peppered with his personal photos—at age 18, entering boot camp, at deployment, swimming in a waterhole in Vietnam. It made him ‘real’ in a sense. I think they could see themselves in his talk because they are his age when life’s difficult choices confronted him,” she said.

Mr. Udden explained how, while on a trip to Washington DC, he visited to the Vietnam Memorial but was unable to find Steve’s name. He did some research and eventually was able to contact Steve’s family in California. The process dredged up many memories of the war, and writing became the only way to make sense of his emotions once they came bubbling to the surface.

Ms. Meisel said that the success of Mr. Udden’s visit has left her and her colleagues with ideas on how to expand this opportunity in the future. Of course, Mr. Udden will be invited back, and since many other students also have grandparents or neighbors who are Vietnam veterans, the event could potentially turn into more of a roundtable presentation around Veterans Day.

There are also plans in the works about how students could participate in the event, possibly by creating a “living museum/gallery” to honor local veterans.