Major League Baseball: Gift From the Heart

By Zach Jones
Sept 22, 2009

 

Each year from September 15 to October 15, Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the contributions of Americans of Spanish and Latin heritage. On Friday, Pittsburgh baseball fans paid special tribute to the city’s most popular Hispanic hero, Roberto Clemente.

A native of Puerto Rico, the baseball legend played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1954 until his death in 1972. Off the field, Clemente was known for his commitment to helping others. The Roberto Clemente Day of Giving, hosted by the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 18, celebrated Roberto’s gifts to the world.

 

A Celebration of Giving Back

When Roberto died in a plane crash in 1972, he was on his way to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. His commitment to charity and volunteer work continues to inspire others today. That’s why his team started the “Day of Giving” in his honor.

The Pirates used the day to introduce people in their community to local charities. Clothing and food were collected for people in need, and raffle tickets were sold to support the team’s own charity fund.

Team players who had served the community received awards. In Clemente’s memory, the Pirates and players on Pittsburgh’s Minor League teams now complete at least 10 hours of volunteer work as part of the Pirates Community Commitment Program. With more than 250 baseball players volunteering their skills this year, that’s a winning hit for community service!

Home Run for Hispanic Heritage

As a child, Roberto was a gifted player and a big fan of baseball. His years of practice paid off. He was recruited for Puerto Rico’s amateur league while still in high school.

In 1954, he was drafted into the Major League and joined the Pittsburgh Pirates. He moved to Pennsylvania and stayed with the same team for almost 20 years.

Early in his career, Clemente was among many Hispanic athletes who had to cope with racism. At games, fans sometimes yelled racist insults at him—and so did some of his teammates. But he brushed it off. “I don’t believe in color,” Clemente once told reporters.

In time, Clemente became one of the sport’s most celebrated stars. He was the first Hispanic American to earn a World Series ring as a starting player in 1960, to win the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in 1966, and the World Series MVP award, in 1971. Outside the game, Clemente spent his time helping at Pittsburgh’s charities. After growing up with a large family and not a lot of money, he felt lucky to be able to give back when he could.

After his death in 1972, Clemente was honored as the first Hispanic American to be voted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Although his career and life were cut short, Clemente helped change American attitudes about Hispanics in professional sports—on and off the field.

 

A Family Tradition

Before he died, Clemente planned to build a sports center for kids near his boyhood home in Puerto Rico. He wanted to create a place where kids could learn how to play sports and how to become good citizens.

Years later, his wife, Vera, made his dream come true. Now more than 100,000 kids visit the Roberto Clemente Sports City each year.

The couple’s eldest son, Roberto Clemente Jr., runs the Roberto Clemente Foundation. The organization’s mission is to help make athletic and education programs available to many people.

Reporters often asked Roberto Sr. about his successes, and he once responded, “Why does everyone talk about the past? All that counts is tomorrow’s game.” He always focused on the next win. Today, his family and teammates are still winning by giving back in his honor.

Source: Scholastic News Online

 

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Medal of Honor Recipient – Army Staff Sgt. Jared Monti

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/YC
Sept. 17, 2009

Editor’s Note: Across just a few deadly yards of rocky terrain, the private’s cries grew weaker. Even though bullets came pouring in like hail, Staff Sgt. Jared Monti made a break for it. The enemy was strong — maybe 50, to the 16 Americans. But Pvt. Brian Bradbury was Monti’s guy. He was isolated and bleeding badly on this grim mountain ridge in northeastern Afghanistan’s Nuristan province. Monti didn’t get far. A barrage of fire cut down the 30-year-old moments before air cover he’d requested arrived.

Below is the whole story of this hero:

Each week we at the Chronicle will be honoring one of these true heros. We will call it Medal of Honor Recipient of the Week. We hope you will join with us to honor these true heros. Who have given us the greatest sacifice that one could give their life, to save their fellow soldiers.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

By Dianna Cahn
Stars and Stripes
Sept. 17, 2009

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Across just a few deadly yards of rocky terrain, the private’s cries grew weaker.

Even though bullets came pouring in like hail, Staff Sgt. Jared Monti made a break for it. The enemy was strong — maybe 50, to the 16 Americans. But Pvt. Brian Bradbury was Monti’s guy. He was isolated and bleeding badly on this grim mountain ridge in northeastern Afghanistan’s Nuristan province.

Monti didn’t get far. A barrage of fire cut down the 30-year-old moments before air cover he’d requested arrived.

Exhausted and reeling from a desperate fight that left Monti and another leader dead, the 10th Mountain Division soldiers pulled Bradbury to safety.

A medevac helicopter appeared like an angel of mercy come after a long nightmare. It lowered a stretcher. A medic grabbed hold of Bradbury and the two rose high into the night air.

He was going to make it.

Then the hoist broke, and the two plummeted to their deaths.

The men who made it off the mountain on June 21, 2006, and the haunting memories of the four who didn’t, will fill the East Room of the White House on Thursday, when President Barack Obama will present Monti’s family, from Raynham, Mass., with the Medal of Honor, the highest recognition a servicemember can earn.

The battle and the crushing accident that followed marked every soldier there. All came back changed by the violence, the loss and the astounding sacrifice they saw in themselves and each other during the most dire juncture of their lives.

“There’s only a few people in the world who have been with a person in their most trying time,” said Staff Sgt. Chris Grzecki, 26, now an instructor at Fort Sill, Okla. “To see the things those guys did — it’s amazing to see that kind of dedication and courage.”

Monti will be receiving the medal. But those present will honor not just Monti, posthumously promoted to sergeant first class. They will also honor Bradbury, whom comrades said kept firing with his good arm until his ammunition ran out, and the rest of the men pinned on that bloody mountain, outnumbered and outgunned.

Some of the younger ones, like Pfc. Derek James, 22, who with a bullet in his back was the only one wounded to make it out alive, Spc. Sean Smith, 23, and Sgt. Joshua Renken, 22, would be back to fight again two years later with the 10th Mountain Division, this time in Logar province.

“I accepted the fact that I was gonna die that day on that mountain,” said Smith. “I do know now it’s made me a better soldier because one of these days, I will be a leader and I will be able to speak from experience and tell my soldiers the bad guys are bad, they will try to kill you. You don’t realize how terrifying it is.”

Suddenly, the place lit up

The 16-soldier patrol from the 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team set out June 18, 2006, on a hellish three-day climb up a steep, unnavigated mountainside into enemy territory near Gowardesh. They were members of Charlie Troop led by Sgt. Patrick Lybert and two groups from Headquarters and Headquarters Troop: the snipers led by Staff Sgt. Chris Cunningham, and the artillery team, known as forward observers, led by Monti.

The troops were supposed to be setting up over-watch for a larger operation in the valley 2,600 feet below. But the main effort got delayed and the soldiers soon exhausted their food and water. A helicopter with fresh supplies that would have come under the distraction of helicopters arriving with the larger operation, instead came in alone, even though it “increased the risk that re-supply would compromise the patrol,” an Army report said.

They divvied up the items and settled in for the night, aware the enemy might have them marked.

The men divided into two positions along the ridgeline, most of them in a line of trees and bushes at the northern end of the ridge, others, including Monti and Cunningham behind some large rock and tree cover at the southern end.

Suddenly, just before dusk, the place lit up with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire from the trees just above the ridge to the north.

James tried to take cover behind a small rock, but it wasn’t enough. An RPG blew a chunk out of his left arm. Then a bullet struck his back. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to make a run for it to the southern position.

“I remember thinking ‘Shit, I am going to die,’ ” James said. “We are all going to die.”

Bleeding, he got up and ran past the ridgeline, then crawled up to the main position, where a medic began to bandage him.

The gunfire was so intense that Grzecki could not reach his rifle about a foot away. A soldier beside him had his rifle shot right out of his hand, Grzecki said.

Lybert was using a big rock for cover, but kept popping up to see where the enemy was, James recalled. “Then, all of a sudden, he just stopped.”

He’d been shot in the head and killed.

“We were taking so much fire we couldn’t make out where the mortars landed. It was coming in so close that … you could hear it right over your head, just like whizzing through,” James said. “They were so close at one point you could hear their voices.”

Smith, who grew up the son of a Special Forces officer in the Middle East, heard the enemy chanting in Arabic. The soldiers were throwing grenades to keep them at bay.

Most of the guys made it back to the main position. But as Bradbury, 22, of St. Joseph, Mo., ran, an RPG exploded and he fell just over the ridge from his colleagues. They called out, kept him talking, but separated from the group by what James called “the death zone,” they could not reach him.

“You can tell Bradbury is slowly slipping away,” Renken said, allowing himself to drift into the moment. “We are doing everything we can to keep him talking.”

Monti, whose call sign was Chaos 35, was on the radio calling in artillery and airstrikes. But when Cunningham said he would go after Bradbury, Monti wouldn’t hear of it.

“That’s my guy. I am going to get him,” Grzecki recalled him saying. “That’s when he threw me the radio and said ‘Hey, you are Chaos 35 now.’ ”

Twice Monti tried to make the run, but gunfire pushed him back. The third time, with the men all laying down cover fire, he went for it, almost making it to Bradbury before he fell in a hail of RPGs and bullets.

“With complete disregard for his own safety, SFC Monti moved from behind the cover of rocks into the face of withering enemy fire,” his commendation says. “SFC Monti’s acts of heroism inspired the patrol to fight off the larger enemy force.”

His scream was like nothing his men had heard before. Several of the men wondered briefly why he seemed to be joking around at a time like this. It took a few seconds for them to realize he’d been hit.

One of the last things he said was that he’d made peace, Grzecki said. And to tell his family he loved them.

‘Trees are falling over …

Within minutes of Monti’s death, the air support he had called in arrived and dropped several 500- and two 2,000-pound bombs just a few hundred yards from where the men were surrounded.

“Trees are falling over, you can hear the shrapnel whizzing over your head,” Renken recalled. “Your teeth are rattling, about to fall right out of your head.”

It took time for the last fire to subside. Finally, the beating of a chopper blade pulled close and a jungle penetrator was lowered down onto the ground before them.

“I remember hearing the flight medic they dropped down say ‘Hey, don’t worry. I am gonna get you guys out of here,’ ” said Smith. “That was nice. It made me feel better. At this point it began to sink in that it was [messed] up, the whole situation.”

Staff Sgt. Heathe Craig, 28, a medic with the 159th Air Ambulance Medical Company out of Wiesbaden, Germany, took James up first. He deposited him on the helicopter, then came back down with extra straps to take Bradbury. The private was too hurt to hold on, so Craig rode up with him, the report said.

They ascended into the darkness, relief washing over the men left below, who, even as the helicopter flew away, believed that their man Bradbury had made it out of there alive.

“I heard a thump, like you dropped a ship anchor to the ground,” Smith said. “I heard someone call the medic again. I asked what was going on.

“The steel cable … snapped and that killed Bradbury,” Smith recounted. “It also killed the flight medic that had just told us we would be OK.”

They laid out the dead and took turns watching the mountain with their thermal vision goggles. They could see the bodies of their comrades slowly growing cold in the long, deep night.

Jittery, they’d call fire every time a twig snapped or an insect landed on their shoulders, Smith said. “Things were lighting up all night long.”

The morning after the firefight, the men scoured the area for enemy bodies or equipment.

“It looked like a nuke had hit,” Smith said. “All the trees were cut in half. Branches were all over.”

The helicopters came back and the men piled their dead in a basket, which was raised to the chopper. But there wasn’t room for the living, now beyond exhaustion. They would have to go down on foot.

The grieving

It would be days before they’d be able to grieve, standing inside a closed military aircraft at Bagram Airfield: 13 men, four coffins and the sobs these hardened soldiers had not allowed themselves before.

Renken would later remember Monti kidding around on the trek up the mountain, telling them how he wanted his funeral to be like the Vikings: a push off into the water with a flaming arrow that would burn in the sea.

“Sgt. Monti was trying to keep everyone happy, cracking jokes, giving people a hard time, just to keep the mood up because we had no food, no water,” Renken said. “We were just hurting.”

For many, Monti was always a legendary figure, a man who gave of himself and always engaged those around him. His men loved him like his family did, for his generosity and his humility and what his father, Paul Monti, described as his humanitarianism.

“He exuded love and caring for everyone around him,” his father said.

Monti was the son who rarely came home for the holidays because he gave away his Christmas leave to someone with a wife and children. He‘d walk into any room and make friends, his father said.

He once infuriated his roommate because he gave their brand-new dining room furniture away to another soldier whose kids were sitting on the floor.

The way Monti died on that mountain was the way he lived.

Source: Stars and Stripes Fox Nation

Protect our Kids From Home to School

by Missing Kids/PIO
Sept. 16, 2009

Every day millions of children take to the streets and highways to get to and from school. For many children this experience is a new one and they may not understand or be able to use the safety rules. Young children do not have the same frame of reference for safety as adults do.

They may not “look before they leap,” which is why it is so important for families to supervise young children and practice safety skills with their older children to make certain they really know and understand them. The tips noted below will help prepare for a safer journey.

Instruct your children to always TAKE A FRIEND, always stay in well-lit areas, never take shortcuts, and never go into isolated areas. Teach them to stay aware of their surroundings and observe all traffic rules in place to more safely share the roads and sidewalks with others.

Walk the route to and from school with your children pointing out landmarks and safe places to go if they’re being followed or need help. Make the walk to and from school a “teachable moment” and chance to put their skills to the test. Make a map with your children showing acceptable routes to and from school. If your children wait for a bus, wait with them or make arrangements for supervision at the bus stop.

If anyone bothers your children or makes them feel scared, uncomfortable, or confused, while going to or from school, teach your children to trust their feelings, immediately get away from that person, and TELL you or another trusted adult. If an adult approaches your children for help or directions, remember grownups needing help should not ask children for help; they should ask other adults. Instruct your children to never accept money or gifts from anyone unless you have told them it is OKAY to accept in each instance.

Even though there can be more safety in numbers it is still not safe for young children to walk to and from school, especially if they must take isolated routes anytime during the day or in darkness. Always provide supervision for your young children to help ensure their safe arrival to and from school.

Instruct your children to leave items and clothing with their name on them at home. If anyone calls out their name, teach them to not be fooled or confused. Teach your children about the tricks someone may try to use to confuse them or engage them in conversation. Children should also be taught that they do not need to be polite if approached and to get out of the situation as quickly and safely as possible

Ensure current and accurate emergency contact information is on file for your children at their school. If you, or another trusted family member or friend, need to pick your children up, make sure to follow the school’s departure procedures. These procedures need to include the school’s confirmation of your children’s departure with only those you authorize to pick them up.

Teach your children if anyone tries to take them somewhere they should quickly get away and yell, “This person is trying to take me away” or “This person is not my father/mother/guardian.” Teach your children to make a scene and every effort to get away by kicking, screaming, and resisting if anyone tries to grab them.

Teach your children if anyone follows them on foot to get away from that person as quickly as possible. If anyone follows them in a vehicle they should turn around, go in the other direction, and try to quickly get to a spot where a trusted adult may help them. Advise them to be sure to TELL you or another trusted adult what happened.

Instruct your children to never leave school with anyone until they’ve checked with a trusted adult. If anyone tells them there is an emergency and they want your children to go with them, teach your children to always CHECK FIRST with you before doing anything. Also teach your children to always CHECK FIRST with you if they want to change their plans before or after school. Make sure your children always play with other children, have your permission to play in specific areas, and let you know where they are going to be. Instruct your children to TELL a trusted adult if they notice anyone they don’t know or feel comfortable with hanging around them.

In the event your children may be lost or injured, make sure they carry a contact card with your name and telephone numbers such as work and cellular. This card should be hidden from plain view.

Key Tips to Reinforce With Your Children

Always TAKE A FRIEND with you when walking, biking, or standing at the bus stop. Make sure you know your bus number and which bus to ride.

Say NO if anyone you don’t know or a person who makes you feel scared, uncomfortable, or confused offers a ride unless I have told you it is OKAY to do so in each instance.

Quickly get away and yell, “THIS PERSON IS NOT MY MOTHER/FATHER/GUARDIAN” if anyone tries to take you somewhere or is following you. If anyone tries to grab you, make a scene and every effort to get away by kicking, screaming, and resisting.

NEVER LEAVE SCHOOL GROUNDS before the regular school day ends. Always check with the office before leaving school early.

NEVER take shortcuts or walk through alleys to get to or from school faster. We will talk about which way to go to and from school. Remind me if activities you participate in cause you to leave earlier or arrive home later than usual. Remember to call me once you have arrived home.

Copyright © 2001, 2004, and 2007 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). All rights reserved.

Source: Missing Kids

Editor’s Note: According to the National Center for Education Statistics in fall 2008, a record 49.8 million students will attend public elementary and secondary schools. An additional 6.2 million students are expected to attend private schools this fall, Fast Facts. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, www.nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372, accessed September 9, 2008.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Little Girl’s Scream Saves Her Life

By Keyla Concepción
BSO/PIO
Sept. 16, 2009

The search is on for a man who broke into an Oakland Park apartment and attempted to abduct a young girl Sunday morning.

The suspect broke into the Oakland Park apartment at around 2 a.m. on September 13. The 7-year-old victim was sleeping in a bedroom with her 8 and 5-year-old brothers when the intruder pried the lock and got inside the home. Awakened by an unfamiliar face, the young girl began to scream as the man picked her up from her bed and headed for the door. Her cries for help prompted the man to leave her in the living room before bolting from the scene. The older brother, who saw the man attempting to take his sister, also began to scream for help until their mother woke up to see what was going on. That’s when she found the front door ajar and the kids told her what had happened.

Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the scene and searched the area for the suspect, but he was not located. Now detectives are releasing a composite sketch of the man in the hopes that someone will be able to identify him.

Anyone who recognizes or has information about this attempted abduction is asked to contact BSO Sex Crimes Detective Chris Blankenship at 954-321-4240, or Broward Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 954-493-TIPS or www.browardcrimestoppers.org. A reward of up to $1,000 is available for information leading to an arrest.

Source: BSO

Editor’s Note: Parents please teach your child to do this, it could save their lives. We will show you some safety tips to help you.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

Girl Scouts Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

By Girl Scouts
Sept 15, 2009

 

September 15 – October 15, Girl Scouts of the USA is proud to celebrate the diversity and rich culture of Hispanics, across America and beyond. During this month we pay homage to Latinos who honor their indigenous, Spanish and African roots.

Today more than 44 million people in the United States are of Hispanic origin, 270,000 of whom are young Latinas who proudly call themselves Girl Scouts. Through Girl Scouts, girls can not only earn patches for learning more about Hispanic heritage, they can also hold Quinceañera celebrations, attend leadership development training, and build the confidence and self-esteem to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Hispanic Heritage Month is the perfect time for girls of all backgrounds to come together to discover, connect and celebrate the Hispanic culture, as well as commemorate the amazing work that is being done everyday by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) with locations across the globe including places such as Spain and Nicaragua.

We invite you to celebrate with Girl Scouts as we strive to provide young Latinas—and every girl—with the leadership skills and opportunities so they can make a powerful, positive and profound contribution to their community—and to our world.

What Latina Girls Say About Leadership

 

Change It Up! What Girls Say about Redefining Leadership brings the voice of girls age 8 to 17 to the forefront on a broad spectrum of issues related to leadership: how they define it, their experiences, and their aspirations. (Boys were also included for comparison purposes.)

What follows is what Latina girls are clearly saying: We need to “Change It Up! (PDF) in how we define and think about leadership:

Insight #1
Girls are redefining leadership in meaningful terms

For Latina girls, preferred definitions of leadership imply personal principles, ethical behavior, and the ability to effect social change. Being a leader is important to 66% of Latina, 70% of African American, and 56% of Asian American girls compared to 49% of Caucasian girls. Nearly 90% of Latina girls want to be the kind of leader who stands up for her beliefs and values, brings people together to get things done, and tries to change the world for the better.

Insight #2
Self-Confidence + Skills = New Girl Leaders

Latinas report high self-regard on a number of leadership skills and qualities and are likely to aspire to leadership. The desire to be a leader is higher among Latina (50%), Asian American (59%), and African American girls (53%) compared to Caucasian girls (34%). Nine out of ten (90%) Latina girls agree that no matter who they are, girls can learn to be good leaders, and 79% agree that girls can be leaders whether or not they are in positions of authority.

Insight #3
Opportunities + Experiences + Support = New Girl Leaders

Families, particularly mothers, are a major positive influence on Latina girls’ leadership aspirations. So are their fathers, relatives, teachers, and friends. Three-quarters (75%) of Latina girls say their mothers encourage them to be leaders, followed by teachers (54%), fathers (50%), friends (48%), and siblings and older relatives (31%).

Latinas Leading Globally

Challenge

How do you talk with your friends about the dangers of Juvenile Diabetes—and

How do you talk with your friends about the dangers of Juvenile Diabetes—and the importance of exercise and eating right—when your 3,000 miles apart?

Opportunity: Girl Scouts Learn Locally, Lead Globally

The Girl Scouts of the Nassau County Council had become proud peer educators on the dangers of Juvenile Diabetes, a disease that affects three-million children and teenagers in the United States. Lisbeth, Andrea, Ashley, Jocelyn and other girls in the Council wanted to share information about Juvenile Diabetes—and the importance of exercise and good nutrition—with young people in Nassau County and throughout the world. But how?

Nassau County Girl Scouts: Reaching, Teaching and Transformation

The Nassau County Council launched a partnership with a WAGGS member organization, located in Lima, Peru. Using videoconferencing technologies and a chat room, Girls Scouts and WAGGGS members shared information about Juvenile Diabetes, Obesity and Hunger. The girls discussed how self-esteem, self-confidence, exercise and a good diet were important building blocks to living a healthy life.

The girls also discussed the similarities—and differences in their cultures. Their questions ranged from Jocelyn asking Brenda, a Peruvian Girl Guide, about her favorite role model (Brenda’s answer: Mother Theresa), to ho was the person some of the girls would like most to meet. Their answer: President Obama!

The Power of Partnership: Results

• Girls Scouts created an international forum connecting them with WAGGGS members.
• Girls Scouts educated their peers about juvenile diabetes and empowered them with information about living healthily.

Girl Scouts and Girl Guides shared information about the differences in their cultures.

Source: Girl Scouts

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? And if you are or were in the Girls Scouts, we would like to hear your story. dan@youngchronicle.com

Students From Washington State Make Law

By Zach Jones
Sept. 14, 2009

A group of fourth-graders at Wedgwood Elementary School in Seattle, Washington, recently got their first taste of politics. These students helped make a law that turned the Olympic marmot into an official symbol of their state.

Each of America’s 50 states has a set of official symbols, like birds, flowers, and slogans. One of these symbols may be an endemic animal, a type that lives in only one area. The Olympic marmot is named after its homeland, Washington’s Olympic National Park. This park is the only place these rare marmots live in the wild.

As a class project, students had to argue to lawmakers why the marmots should be recognized as a state symbol. Students e-mailed their opinions to lawmakers and later testified, or spoke, before lawmakers in the state capital of Olympia. They even appeared with Washington Governor Christine Gregoire when she signed the bill that turned their furry friends into an official symbol.

 

Law of the Land

In each state, a law must be passed to approve the naming of an official symbol. Wedgwood students would not have been able to name the marmot their state’s official endemic animal without help from the Constitution, which provided a model for state governments to pass laws. On Thursday, Americans will celebrate Constitution Day, when this important document was signed on September 17, 1787.

The Constitution spells out the U.S. system of government. It divides the government into three branches: executive, judicial, and legislative. The President is the head of the executive branch. The Supreme Court is the most powerful court of the judicial branch. Congress is the legislative, or lawmaking branch. It contains two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The Constitution sets rules for making laws in Congress. A bill, or plan for a law, must first pass both the House and the Senateby a majority vote. The President has the option of signing a bill or vetoing (saying no to) it. If a bill is vetoed, it can still become the law of the land if Congress overrides the veto.

State laws come about in a similar way. As in Congress, the state of Washington has two groups of elected lawmakers to help create laws: the Senate and the Assembly. The Governor, who is the state’s elected leader, signs a bill into law only after both houses of the Washington Legislature vote to pass the bill.

With help from teachers, Wedgwood students asked State Senator Ken Jacobsen to write a bill to make the Olympic marmot their new state symbol. “I commend these fourth-graders for taking the time to learn about this state mammal and learn about the process of proposing a bill,” Jacobsen said.

State Law, State Pride

Students felt confident that the bill would pass the Legislature, but some lawmakers wanted first to focus on issues other than state symbols. “Maybe they just don’t like the Olympic marmot,” said 10-year-old Garrett Lawrence to The Seattle Times. Garrett is one of 50 students from Wedgwood Elementary School who helped persuade lawmakers to pass the bill.

Many people in the state were excited when Governor Gregoire finally signed the bill into law-especially the students who helped make it happen. “The whole school was abuzz,” said Kelly Clark, a teacher at Wedgwood Elementary School.

“It’s not every day kids make a bill and get this experience,” student Caroline Malone told The Seattle Times.

To celebrate the school’s success, Washington’s Secretary of State Sam Reed threw a party for all the students involved. All the kids wore marmot masks, and some even wore marmot costumes! But they were celebrating more than just the marmot. They were also joyful over the freedom kids have in the United States to participate in government

Source: Scholastic News Online

 

Editor’s Note: At left, the Olympic marmot (Steven Kazlowski/Science Faction/Corbis). At right, students who championed the “Marmot Bill” celebrate as Governor Christine Gregoire signs the bill into law (Courtesy Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture).

We would like to know what you think?  dan@youngchronicle.com

Volunteer NY Firefighter Honored for 911

By Dan Samaria
Publisher/GCC
September 11, 2009

Editor’s Note: We at the Chronicle along with millions of Americans, will never forget what happened September 11, 2001.

Today we will be honoring those heroes, families that have lost their love ones.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

by Newsmax
Sept. 11, 2009

JERICHO, N.Y. — A volunteer firefighter who died helping to rescue people from the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been awarded the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor.

Lawmakers presented Glenn Winuk’s relatives with the medal Monday in his Long Island hometown.

Winuk was a 40-year-old lawyer and longtime volunteer Jericho firefighter who raced from his Manhattan office into the trade center. He died when the south tower collapsed.

The Justice Department initially didn’t recognize Winuk as having died in the line of duty because he hadn’t been on regular duty since 1998. The agency dropped its objections in January 2008, making him eligible for the medal and a $250,000 death benefit.

The award was given to the relatives of 442 other public safety officers killed in the terror attacks.

© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: Newsmax

9/11 Children All Grown Up

by WSJ
September 11, 2009

Editor’s Note: We at the Chronicle along with millions of Americans, will never forget what happened September 11, 2001.

Today we will be honoring those heroes, families that have lost their love ones.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

It is eight years since 9/11, and here is an unexpected stage of grief: fear that the ache will go away. I don’t suppose it ever will, but grieving has gradations, and “horror” becomes “absorbed sadness.” Life moves on, and wants to move on, which is painful for those who will not forget and cannot be comforted. Part of the spookiness of life, part of its power to disorient us, is not only that people die, that they slip below the waves, but that the waves close above them so quickly, the sea so quickly looks the same.

I’ve been thinking about those who were children on 9/11, not little ones who were shielded but those who were 10 and 12, old enough to understand that something dreadful had happened but young enough still to be in childhood. A young man who was 14 the day of the attacks told me recently that there’s an unspoken taboo among the young people of New York: They don’t talk about it, ever. They don’t want to say, “Oh boo hoo, it was awful.” They don’t want to dwell. They shrug it off when it comes up. They change the subject.

This week, in a conversation with college students at an eastern university, I brought it up. Seven students politely shared some of their memories. I invited them to tell me more the next morning, and was surprised when six of the seven showed up. This is what I learned:

They’ve been marked by 9/11 more than they know. It was their first moment of historical consciousness. Before that day, they didn’t know what history was; after that day, they knew they were in it.

It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful. A 20-year-old junior told me that after 9/11, “a backpack on a subway was no longer a backpack,” and a crowded theater was “a source for concern.” Every one of them used the word “bubble”: the protected bubble of their childhood “popped.” And all of them said they spent 9/11 and the days after glued to the television, watching over and over again the footage—the north tower being hit by the plane, the fireball. The video of 9/11 has firmly and ineradicably entered their brains. Which is to say their first visual memory of America, or their first media memory, was of its towers falling down.

I’d never fully realized this: 9/11 was for America’s kids exactly what Nov. 22, 1963, was for their parents and uncles and aunts. They were at school. Suddenly there were rumors in the hall and teachers speaking in hushed tones. You passed an open classroom and saw a teacher sobbing. Then the principal came on the public-address system and said something very bad had happened. Shocked parents began to pick kids up. Everyone went home and watched TV all day, and the next.

Simon, a 20-year-old college junior, was a 12-year-old seventh-grader at a public school in Baltimore. He said: “It’s first-period science, and the teacher next door, who was known to play jokes on other teachers, comes in completely stone-faced and says a plane has hit the World Trade Center, and no one believes him.” Simon didn’t know what to believe but remembered reading that in 1945 a plane had struck the Empire State Building, and “the building stayed up,” so he didn’t worry too much.

“At lunch time the vice principal comes up and he explains that two planes had hit the World Trade Center and one had hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center was gone, and I never—when you have your mouth agape it’s never for anything important, but I remember having my mouth agape for a minute or two in complete and utter shock. I went to my art period and I remember my art teacher sitting there with her hands on her face just bawling, she was so frightened. My mom picked me up, and I remember walking with her, and I’m saying ‘This is Pearl Harbor.’”

Nine-eleven, he felt, changed everything for his generation. “It completely destroyed our sense of invincibility—maybe that’s not the right word. I would say it made everything real to a 12-year-old. It showed the world could be a dangerous place when for my generation that was never the case. My generation had no Soviet Union, no war against fascism, we never had any threats. I was born when the Berlin Wall came down. It destroyed the sense of carefree innocence that we had.”

Juliette, also 20 and a junior, was in eighth grade in Great Falls, Va. “I think the kids were shocked,” she said. “The major question was how could this happen, who would do that—like, how does something so crazy happen? What I had is a sense that it was going to be one of those days of which 30 years down the road, people would ask me, What were you doing on that day, where were you on 9/11?—that my children would ask me. And so I set myself to remembering the details.”

I told her that it is interesting to me that no great art has yet come from 9/11. The reason may be that adults absorbed what had happened, and because we had absorbed it, we did not have to transmute it into art. Maybe when you are still absorbing, or cannot absorb, that’s when art happens. Maybe your generation will do it, I said.

She considered this. “There’s always the odds that something much more horrible will happen that will really shake us out of our torpor, that will wake us she said.

The attack was not only an American event. Robbie, an 18-year-old freshman, was 10 and in primary school in England. “We were near the end of school. There were murmurs from teachers about something happening. I remember going back home, and my mum had both televisions on with different news channels. I remember the tower and the pillar of smoke. The big pillar of smoke was very vivid to me, and my mother trying to explain the seriousness of it. I think 9/11 brought us bang slap into the 21st century. I remember when the millennium came people said ‘new time, new world,’ but 9/11 was the ‘new time, new world.’ I understood it was something big, something that changed the world.”

Then he told me that after we had talked the previous evening, he’d had a dream. “I was back in my old school in England, and in front of me I could see the city of Bristol, nothing distinct, but big towers, big buildings. And I could see them crumbling and falling. There was a collective fear, not just from myself but amongst everyone in the dream. I remember calling in the dream my mum, and saying ‘Are you safe, are you safe?’ I think this perhaps shows that after 9/11 . . . as a small child you felt safe, but after 9/11, I don’t think I personally will ever feel 100% safe. . . . I think the dream demonstrates—I think the dream contained my hidden feelings, my consciousness.”

He remembered after 9/11 those who rose up to fight terrorism. Even as a child he was moved by them. There are always in history so many such people, he said. It is always the great reason for hope.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Remembering 9/11 – Story Tellers

By Elizabeth Llorente
Sept 11. 2009

Editor’s Note: We at the Chronicle along with millions of Americans, will never forget what happened September 11, 2001.

Today we will be honoring those heroes, families that have lost their love ones.

We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

For almost a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, journalist Maria Alvarez spent nearly all her time at Ground Zero, chronicling for the New York Post the horrors she witnessed firsthand around the towers before they collapsed, and then the grim and gripping aftermath. She watched the heroics and selflessness of emergency responders, the grace and dedication of those who searched for remains, and the remarkable ethic of those who cleaned up amid the dangerous toxins. When the cleanup of the site ended, so did her assignment—and her sense of purpose.

“It was very hard. All my purpose in life for all those months after September 11 came to a halt,” says Alvarez, who came from Bolivia as a young child. “I got assigned to another story, a big trial in Connecticut. I thought, ‘That’s good, it’ll help me forget.’ But it wasn’t the same anymore. I had an insatiable appetite to write about 9/11. I felt anything [else] I was doing was meaningless.”

Now Alvarez, 49, is once again telling the story of September 11 and the heroism she witnessed that day and in the months that followed. But this time she is telling the story as one of nearly 150 volunteers who conduct guided tours of the Tribute World Trade Center Visitor Center.

The volunteer walking tour program began in 2005, a year before the Tribute Center opened. The first group of 17 volunteers guided groups interested in learning about the history and impact of the World Trade Center around the perimeter of the site. Today’s volunteers, who go through training and commit to conducting between two and nine tours a month, engage visitors during walking tours and in the museum’s galleries by sharing  their own personal experiences—of survival, loss, and healing—directly related to that fateful day.

“Our volunteers allow the Tribute Center to provide a rare opportunity for visitors to learn through oral histories,” says Tracy Grosner, volunteer program coordinator. “Each individual perspective is different. These personal experiences put a human face on the overwhelming events that shocked the nation and the world.”

More than 40 percent of the visitors to the Tribute Center are international, and of the six languages in which audio tours are offered, Spanish is the language most frequently requested, says Grosner.

Juan Alamo, a 70-year-old volunteer who was born in Cuba, was sworn into the U.S. Army on September 11, 1961, and recalls the many deals he had sealed over the years at the North Tower’s Windows on the World restaurant as a top financial officer of various major investment firms.

“I love this country, everything it did for me,” he says. “This was a horrendous act that was perpetrated on our country. I had to help out.”

He decided to volunteer as a tour guide, encouraged by the hope that he says will come with the rebirth of the area. “There’s rebuilding, a renaissance going on there,” he says. “This country was able to put it back together. There’s hope, there’s tomorrow.”

Source:  AARP

Remembering 9/11 – Eagle Scouts Build Memorial in Florida

By Shelby Fallin
September 11, 2009

This week communities across the country are honoring the memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Jeff Cox, a 15-year-old Eagle Scout from Windermere, Florida, wants to give people in his community a way to honor those victims every day. He decided to bring a piece of the World Trade Center buildings to his hometown for a memorial.

“I remember I was in second grade and I really didn’t know what was going on,” Cox said of the attacks. “Then seeing these two huge buildings falling down on TV—it was like a scary movie, and I never really liked scary movies.”

On September 11, 2001, four consumer airplanes were hijacked and intentionally crashed in a terrorist attack on the United States. Two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centers in New York City. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane was headed for the White House, but crashed instead into a field in Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people died in the attacks. Many of those people were firefighters and police officers—first responders—attempting to save people from the wreckage.

The young Eagle Scout’s older brother is a local firefighter who was recently wounded in the line of duty. Cox said he wanted to honor the firefighters and other first responders, as well as the memories of all the people who died that day.

To put his plan in action, he first did some research. Cox went online and found that the Port Authority of New York City had preserved pieces of metal from the World Trade Center buildings. He then approached the Mayor of Windermere, Gary Bruhn, to see if the town would be interested in having a memorial.

“I thought it was a tremendous idea,” Bruhn said. “We have a lot of requests for projects. This is a project that will stand the test of time and generations.”

The Port Authority gave Cox several choices. He finally chose a 650-pound beam that was recovered from the destroyed buildings. The Port Authority keeps remnants from the attacks in Hangar 17 at JFK Airport in Queens, New York.

The next problem was how to ship such a huge hunk of steel from New York to Florida. Cox started looking for sponsors and volunteers to help. It didn’t take long. UPS has agreed to sponsor some of the cost of the shipping and local engineers have volunteered to design the memorial.

The town of Windermere donated a piece of land where the memorial will be placed. The city is helping Cox find someone to donate a spotlight.

Cox hopes to have the memorial finished by the end of the year. He is planning a dedication ceremony on February 20, 2010.

“The town of Windermere is celebrating its firefighters and policemen that day and I thought that would be a great day to dedicate the memorial, too,” he said.

Mayor Bruhn agrees.

“It will be a constant reminder of those firefighters and first responders not only on 9/11 but beyond that,” Bruhn said. “They serve our community and put their lives on the line everyday.”

The memorial is not just for Windermere residents, but all of Central Florida as well, the Mayor added. “I think it will touch a lot of people to see steel from the actual towers.”

You can find out more about the artifacts being preserved in Hangar 17 at JFK airport in New York from a report written by Kid Reporter Juliette Kessler in 2007. Kessler, who was also in second grade when the attacks occurred, was in school only a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Six years later she toured the hangar and remembered her experiences from that day.

Source: Scholastic News Online

Editor’s Note: Shelby Fallin is a member of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

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