Vietnam War Dead Honored

Kettle Falls High School students will take time today to honor three graduates who might now be parents of high school kids if they hadn’t died in Vietnam two decades ago.

Like many other students at the high school, student body president Tatum Marco knew little about the Vietnam War when veterans groups approached the school

Marco said she had heard an occasional story from her stepfather, “but he really doesn’t like to talk about it. … It always scared him that he would see his friends go off and they would never come back.”

Little about the war is learned in school, either, she added. “I don’t think it’s far enough back in our history.”

But Marco said she and others were moved when friends of Kettle Falls High School graduates Bobby Brown, Tom Shriner and John Sparks told them about the promising young men whose lives were cut short. All three were active in the student government - Shriner was president of his class - sports and other school programs.

“If war happened again, this could happen to us,” Marco said. “Our fathers fought in this war. It affects us.”

So the students will don blue and yellow ribbons, the school colors, today to show their respect when community members join them in dedicating a monument at the school.

, DataTimes