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.
photo gallery of students interviewing veterans
Coming soon: a video series running from Memorial Day to
Veteran’s Day. Watch a video of a local veteran’s story every
Wednesday, beginning May 21 and running through Nov. 12, the day
after Veteran’s Day. Go to the Dispatch home page, then select
Stories of Service.
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.”
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.
“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.
Mark Foley, 16, and his group are working with Foley’s grandfather, Luke Marden, a sailor on the USS Phelps. Of the 26 participating veterans, eight are relatives or grandparents of the students.
“My grandfather didn’t tell us a lot about the war,” Foley said. Because of the project, “he’s telling stories about sinking subs and manning the sonar,” Foley said, happy to know more of his grandfather’s story. Marden shared many details of the war with his group that his family had never heard about before.
“It makes me respect him even more, that he had that bravery,” he said of his grandfather. “This project has a lot more meaning because it’s about real people’s lives.”
“It’s a great program, a great way for kids to learn,” said GHS principal James Maxwell, whose father is one of the veterans being interviewed by Yafai’s 10th graders. An Army engineer, James Maxwell, Jr. served in Germany and cleaned up the wreckage left behind after the Battle of the Bulge.
“It’s amazing how many they were able to find,” Maxwell said. “The project is time consuming and difficult, but project-based learning is the best way to learn.”
Several students reiterated the difficulty of the project but sat quietly as their veteran told his or her story. A group of seven girls sat poised to take notes with photographs of Frank Pattie spread out before them. Pattie, an Air Force pilot who flew B17 bombers from Florida to New York, never made it overseas.
“I wanted to, but the war was cooling down at that point,” Pattie said. “I had no fear in those days. Looking back, I don’t know if I’d want to do it again.”
Like his fellow veterans, Pattie wore a hat embossed with the United States Air Force seal. They wear the hats proudly and speak of their experiences with a reverence for the years that shaped their lives. They saw atrocities that are unspeakable and participated in the most destructive conflict in human history. When they returned to familiar soil, the GI Bill put many of them through college. They married their sweethearts and became proud parents. They went on to become teachers, police officers, businessmen and grandparents. And now, their numbers are dwindling, the memories fading.
“World War II, outside of the guys who were in it, is pretty much forgotten,” Burchell said.
“We’re working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Yafai said.
Coming soon: a video series running from Memorial Day to Veteran’s Day. Watch a video of a local veteran’s story every Wednesday, beginning May 21 and running through Nov. 12, the day after Veteran’s Day. Go to the Dispatch home page, then select Stories of Service.
