D-Day vets chat with Central students

Exactly 70 years after D-Day, students in the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s Meadowbrook Alternative Program and veterans who are members of the Jewel Quinn Senior Center — MAP and Jewel Quinn share the building at Brookside School in North Merrick — got together for a conversation about history.

MAP, which takes in students from throughout the Central District, provides educational opportunities for students who have had difficulties fitting in at traditional high school settings. The group of veterans, who served in World War II and the Korean War, included Frank DePergoli, 91, and Sam Karp, 91, who landed at the beaches of Normandy 10 days and 11 days, respectively, after D-Day — June 6, 1944.

Listening to their and the other veterans’ stories allowed the MAP students to “connect the history they learn in textbooks to real life on June 6, in recognition of D-Day,” stated a school district news release. The students also expressed thanks to the veterans for their service to the country.

“We have to remember why the boys went over there,” Karp said in the release. “It was to protect everybody’s rights. Everyone is a human being, and they are entitled to the way they think or what they feel. We went over there to make sure that these rights weren’t taken away from us.”