Schoolteacher, school superintendent speak of their time in military, meaning of Memorial Day

Educators with military backgrounds brought lessons of respect and remembrance to Cape Girardeau's and Jackson's Memorial Day events.

Jackson featured remarks by U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau and schoolteacher Penny Kurre, a 1980 Jackson High School graduate who reached the rank of petty officer second class in the U.S. Navy before returning home to study at Southeast Missouri State University.

At the Cape Girardeau celebration at Osage Community Centre, the keynote speech was delivered by Charleston School District superintendent Andrew Rogers, a lieutenant colonel in the Missouri Army National Guard.

About 250 people attended the event at the entrance to Jackson's city cemetery. The Jackson Municipal Band played patriotic songs and marches that provided interludes between remarks.

Emerson noted that her husband, Ron Gladney, is a veteran and that her stepson, Sam Gladney, a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, returned to Iraq just a week ago.

"For those of us not in the military, there is no way to express our gratitude," Emerson said.

Kurre, a teacher at Jackson Junior High School, said her family has a tradition of military service and that she was proud to be a part of that heritage. As she traveled, Kurre said, she received a close-up view of life in foreign lands and was glad to return to America.

"We have a lot better system than they have overseas," she said.

Young people join the armed forces for a variety of reasons, Kurre said. Some do so out of a sense of duty. "Some people join the military because they feel they have a debt they owe the country for our freedom," she said.

Whatever the reason, the military provides a lifelong bond with other service members and unbreakable links to the past, she said.

"A civilian does not understand the camaraderie we have as veterans," Kurre said.

At the Osage Community Centre, more than 400 people gathered for about an hour to hear Rogers explain how he started as a poor country boy in Wayne County who joined to find money to pay for a university education.

Along the way he completed officer candidate school in 1988, has been sent on four tours to Panama, three tours to Japan and two deployments to Iraq.

When he sees older veterans, Rogers said, he is constantly reminded of the sacrifices earlier generations made to maintain American freedom. And when he sees the students under his care in Charleston, he said, he believes the same willingness and abilities are present.

"Some say they don't have the grit," Rogers said. "Some say they don't have the mustard. But they do." The military is the great equalizer among people of diverse backgrounds, he said.

"I am always struck by the fact that when I look at the headstones in a cemetery for the military, it makes no distinctions about class. It makes no distinctions about race. It recognizes them all as veterans," he said.

As he closed his remarks, Rogers said individual stories tell the real meaning of Memorial Day. He spoke of looking for Pfc. Matthew Maupin, a soldier from Batavia, Ohio, who was captured by Iraqi insurgents in 2004 and whose execution by those insurgents was televised via video by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language television network. During 2005, Rogers said he helped look for Maupin and did so again when he returned to Iraq in 2007 and 2008, when Maupin's remains were recovered.

"I am not sad about it, and I wouldn't want you to be sad if it was me," Rogers said as he became choked up. "He is a bigger hero than I will ever be."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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Pertinent addresses:

1625 N. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, MO

Jackson, MO