Teacher sends pupil on 'road less traveled'

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Darren Durkee
  • 93rd Operations Support Squadron commander
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  One of my elementary teachers, Mrs. Lovell, made a huge impact on my life.

She was the kind of teacher who taught us so much more than the three Rs. She taught us about life.

I remember one day when she showed us slides of her family vacation in Hawaii. Some showed the USS Arizona Memorial with its rusty turrets peering from the sea, the oil floating on the surface and the great structure arched over the ship's remains.

While showing slides of the names of the fallen sailors etched on the memorial wall, she shared with us the story of those wicked few hours at Pearl Harbor, and she wept. That moment in that small classroom is burned into my memory.

It was the first time I realized what it really meant to love your country, to be an American. And it was the first time I witnessed the pain that comes from an attack on the heart of America, something I hoped our nation would never experience again. But that was not to be.

Mrs. Lovell read us poetry from many of the great American poets. One of my favorites was Robert Frost, and his poem "The Road Not Taken:"

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear;..."

Those of you who wear the uniform, you have made a choice. You have made a choice to sacrifice for your nation. You have made a choice to defend freedom and liberty. You have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. Sometimes the other road may look tempting, but you have chosen the path that was "grassy and wanted wear."

As we are once again engaged in war, this time against terrorism, I look down the road as far as I can, and I see many reasons to be thankful.

I thank Mrs. Lovell for the goose bumps I get every time I hear "The Star-Spangled Banner." I am thankful that our country has the leadership and the resolve to do what is right. And I am especially thankful for those of you who give service to this great nation as a member of the armed forces.

What you are doing will have a lasting impact on the lives of generations to follow, as did the actions of the many patriots who have gone before us. You have made a choice, and what you do in uniform each and every day, home or deployed, really does matter.

As Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." (Courtesy Air Combat Command News Service)