How often have you heard, “when I went to school I walked five miles in three feet of snow to a one room school house, split the wood for the stove, and drew the drinking water from the well, all before school”? I didn’t have to do all that but I did have to walk two miles to my school each day in all kinds of weather. But having grown up only a two-hours drive from what is a monumental mark in the history of the United States and never visited there; I must say two miles was a very small distance to walk.
This year in April, for the first time, my wife and I stopped at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. Until you stand where 51,000 men died and many, many more were wounded; you will never be able to imagine what agony they went through.
When you see where the men from the South marched straight into the cannons of the North, at The Angle, you can see they believed in their cause. Even after being there it is hard to understand what these men and boys, from both sides, went through.
The day in April when we went to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, we saw a pine sprig with a pinecone on each Maine soldier’s headstone and a small American and Maine flag at each Maine Monument throughout the battlefield.
We were pleased to see that one school from Maine remembered their ancestors and did not forget what they fought and died for. I am sure other schools have done so in the past, but for this Independence Day, we should all thank the Riley School from Rockport for remembering the men from Maine who gave not only their time but many also their lives.
I would hope more schools would take their students to places like this where they might learn what our freedom is all about and why it must be preserved. I am sure if these brave soldiers could they would rise up from their resting ground and thank these individuals, from their home state, for not forgetting them or the sacrifice they made. It was just a single pinecone and a sprig of green on each man’s headstone but it was something that was brought all the way from Maine, the soldier’s home.
Gil Foltz
North Haven