Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 1991, Page 160

Description: South affected by warThe headlines read:Desert Victory, Kuwaitis Liberated — GeorgeBush, February 27, 1991,A Moment to Savor, and A hellish, hundred-hourground war destroys Saddams fighting machine.Vicariously, BloomingtonSouth was there.Shauna Flud, class of 90,U.S. Army Specialist; MattLavender, former Southstudent, U.S. Army 82ndAirborne; and Greg Guthrie,Army Specialist 1st class,101st Airborne, all sawcombat in the Allied operation to force Saddam Husseins troops from their occupation of Kuwait. Guthrieis the son of Colleen Guthrie, South attendance officesecratary.Assigned to a transportation unit, Flud drove intoboth Kuwait City and Iraq.It is an experience I willnever forget; I am a differentperson because of everything that happened to mein that horrible desert, shesaid. If any of my childrenwant to join the Army, I willtell them all about my experiences in this war, eventhe death and horror. Theymust be prepared for theworst if they want to be partof the military.Fluds worst experiencecame when she witnessed atruck accident that resultedin the death of her closestfriend. Jumping from herown truck, Flud ran to thewreck to assist the soldier.Another troop (soldier)and I got her out of thetruck. We tried to help butIll never forget that shedied in my arms, Fludsaid.Guthrie was on the first101st Airborne helicopterinto Iraq and he was thefirst soldier on the ground,according to his mother.The 101st Airborne led theend run punch that cut thehighway from Kuwait City toBagdad, trapping Iraqsarmy, she said.It was a terrifying expe-Jill Kelly watches the crisis inthe Gulf unfold on the librarys television at South.Greg Guthrie, son of secretaryColleen Guthrie, stands in front ofthe 101st Airbomes tent city inSaudi Arabia.rience. From what Greg saidbefore he left for the MiddleEast, and the things he saidin his letters, we had a goodidea what he was going tobe doing. We knew hewould be in the thick ofthings. Because he couldntsay very much in his letters,we didnt know exactlywhere he was, Guthriesaid.now that he is home, Iam extremely proud. I haveto admit that tears come tomy eyes when I think aboutwhat he has done, now I ammore patriotic than ever before; I really cry when I hearthe national Anthem,commented Guthrie.South students andteachers also kept closetrack of the events in theMiddle East from the fristday of the aerial bombardment of Iraq and the finalinformal cease fire. Someof our Arab students withconnections in Palestine orIraq lent an important perspective to the class discussions, said Joel Marsh,English teacher. In myspeech class, Billy Sabbaghdid an outstanding job ofexplaining the Arab position, particularly the Palestinian point of view, hesaid.A television set washooked up to Cable network news (Cnn) in the library. Books related to theMiddle East, magazines,and related informationwere all prominently displayed.On the first day of thewar we had three TVs set upin the library; there musthave been over 200 students in the library at onetime, said Kathy Rush,South librarian. A TV wastuned to Cnn and turned onduring the entire school dayfrom the beginning to theend. Hundreds of studentsand teachers as well were inand out every day, Rushsaid.160 / ALBUMI
Source: http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/3789
Collection: Bloomington High School South

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