Vietnam veteran shares wartime stories with freshmen
 When Jeremiah Enright was first drafted for the Vietnam War, he focused on the benefits: for example, four years of free college after two years of service. Only 18 years old at the time, he also had the youthful "I'm going to live forever" mindset, so the idea of combat did not terrify him. But he learned the truth about war in Vietnam.
The Stevenson High School English teacher visited LCHS on April 8 to share his stories with freshman students enrolled in regular level English classes. The classes are reading Walter Dean Myers' Fallen Angels. The story is about 17-year-old Richie Perry's attempt to find meaning in the Vietnam War during his service.
Like Richie, Enright watched his friends die and was wounded a few times during the war. In one day, he suffered eight bullet wounds. Enright also learned survival skills, such as how to kill chickens, defeather them, and cook them underground. Vietnam was "a world I could not relate to," said Enright, who also shares his experiences every year at Stevenson and Libertyville high schools.
Jamie Collins, the English teacher who arranged for Enright's visit, said that in addition to the guest speaker, freshmen students completed a webquest about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and interviewed someone who was alive during the Vietnam War. The purpose of the activities, she said, is to allow students to form their own opinions about the war as they study its history and the literature. |
