First grade students at St. Kilian School, Hartford, make thank-you cards for veterans who received them Oct. 4 during a Stars and Stripes Honor Flight. (Submitted photo)
Countless U.S. veterans have returned home from war over the years without receiving appreciation for their sacrifice and the traumas they endured in combat.
Students at St. Kilian School in Hartford and Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha are helping change that, as they are contributing life-changing words of gratitude that veterans are receiving on the Milwaukee-based Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, all while they learn how God works in their own service to others.
Both Rachel Madden, who teaches theology at Catholic Memorial, and Jen Bloom, a first-grade homeroom teacher at St. Kilian, had connections to the program when they launched their students’ efforts. Between the two schools, 150 students contribute letters to veterans.
“I taught at a Catholic school in Milwaukee, and one of my friends that teaches there, her husband’s on the board of Stars and Stripes Honor Flight. We did a lot of things together with veterans, making cards and getting involved in this way,” Bloom said.
“When I started working here in 2019, I brought it here and stayed connected with the Adopt-a-Veteran program that they have.”
Madden’s involvement began when she was youth minister at Holy Apostles, New Berlin, for 10 years and began having youth group members write letters each year.
“I had a student whose grandpa was a participant on the Honor Flight. His grandpa shared how meaningful it was that he received letters from his family and his friends just thanking him for his service during ‘mail call’ on the flight back from Washington, D.C.; but I learned a lot of the soldiers don’t receive letters, but anyone can write a letter,” said Madden, whose school name has its origins with 23 members of St. Joseph, Waukesha, who died in World War II.
“I thought that’s a great idea to help our young people understand the commitment that these people have made, the sacrifices they’ve made, and just show their appreciation for it.”
Both Bloom and Madden believe that the students’ cards and letters’ impact not only offers the kind of gratitude these veterans deserve but open the door to healing emotional wounds from both war and its aftermath — particularly for Vietnam veterans.
“When you watch the videos and the clips, I think a lot of them are just very overwhelmed by the amount of letters they get from strangers,” said Bloom. “A lot of them say that when they came home, they didn’t get a welcome or any recognition. To get that now, I think that closes that chapter for them.”
Madden sees how their service reveals God’s healing presence to these vets.
“I’ve met a few Vietnam veterans that have shared their experience of what it was like to come back and be screamed at or yelled at. Something that surprises me is how our students today are unaware of a time in our history when veterans weren’t welcomed back and appreciated,” said Madden, who has attended Honor Flight homecomings at Mitchell International Airport.
“Having an opportunity to share that with our students, allow them to be Jesus to somebody else, act as Jesus would and welcome them back and say, ‘Thank you for what you did and welcome home,’ really ties into our faith and our call to be Jesus to other people.”
Bloom says that it’s understandably harder for first graders to comprehend the aftereffects of war and how faith can play a part in healing that, but they can grasp what sacrifice means.
“We talk about how when these people were younger, they gave up their families, their time and their schooling to go and fight for their country. We should thank them and keep them in our prayers, on Honor Flight and just veterans in general,” Bloom said.
“It’s not just a one-time, ‘make a card, we’re done’ proposition. Each week when we go to Mass, we have a book of prayers. We put veterans and the Honor Flight date in there.”
Madden’s class has received feedback from an Honor Flight recipient in a way that revealed how God touched the life of a veteran through her students’ compassion.
“The students can put their name and Catholic Memorial High School so veterans can write back if they like. One student was so excited that somebody wrote her back and shared his gratitude, how much he wished his grandchildren could have been there. He shared how he served for children in the future. To actually see that his decision, choices and bravery has impacted a younger generation was very meaningful,” she said.
“Part of our mission as disciples is to become aware of what other people experience, that our worlds might be different than theirs. They have a chance to participate in somebody’s healing, reach out and show them how much Jesus loves us.”
