The things they carried

Late last year, after discussing the events of Sept. 11, 2001 with her eighth grade students, Oceanside Middle School ELA teacher Bonnie Hennessy decided to give her classes a hands-on project. She had all 150 students in her group write letters to soldiers currently serving overseas.

It was a bit of a surprise for some of the students months later, in 2012, when a handful of them received letters back from the soldiers they had written to.

“I was surprised that I actually got one, because I didn’t think they would actually respond,” said Chris Dasaro, one of the students who received correspondence back from a soldier serving overseas in Afghanistan.

While soldiers love receiving letters from people here at home — even complete strangers, like many of the students were — they don’t always get a chance to respond. Of the 150 of Hennessy’s students that sent letters, only 10 received responses.

“It gave a description of how he lived, where he was and what they did over the holidays, because that’s the time we wrote it,” Dasaro said of the letter he received.

One of the students, Natalia Revere, received much more back. In addition to a long letter from Timothy O’Sullivan (the soldier that received her letter), she also received an American flag that was flown on an aircraft carrier in her honor on Christmas day.

“I was surprised,” she said. “I’m probably going to encase it and put it on display in my house.”

Before they knew they were getting letters back from soldiers, many of the students at OMS held a fund raiser for the Long Beach Waterfront Warriors, which arranges week-long summer vacations in Long Beach for wounded veterans and their families. The students of OMS raised enough money to purchase two iPads which they donated to the program.

Although the students did not know who their letters would be going to, they now have the opportunity to write back to the soldiers. Anthony Cascio, who wrote his letter about how happy he was for the soldiers’ service, plans to email the soldier who wrote him.

The letters also served as a learning experience for the students, letting them know what it was like to be serving in Afghanistan or Iraq.

“It kind of also brings things into perspective,” said Matthew DiStefano. “All these commercials you see advertising the armed forces, they don’t tell you about all of the hardships [the soldiers] go through.

My guy, he was talking about how a lot of times you’re lucky if you get a bathroom inside a building and

hot water.”