As we’re nearing the end of the school year, especially in the colleges, we went to a community college and a large high school, both in NYC.

Will Griffin gave a wide-ranging presentation to the college students which you can watch above. It covered his personal story of growing up in a military family, failing to find safe and remunerative work after high school graduation and then his decision to give the military a go. He ended up being deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, during both surges, first under Bush and then under Obama. The second part of Will’s presentation is a slide show dealing with U.S. military history, funding, bases, conditions for women in the military and more.

Joe Urgo had a long and busy day speaking to very engaged students in five classes at the high school. Joe, a Vietnam veteran, beginning during his youth and his own formative high school experiences, spoke about how that led him to volunteer to go to Vietnam, what he experienced and witnessed while there and how that effected the rest of his life. Two students raised questions about patriotism and nationalism, wondering that in dealing with imperialism, can’t nationalism play a positive role? Doesn’t that relate to a positive role for patriotism as well?

A question that frequently come up in other classes and schools was “What was the one experience that changed you the most?”

One Vietnamese-American student returned for a second class during a free period for her. She had been thinking about how to phrase her question. She spoke to how her parents had left Vietnam due to fear of Communist persecution. She was trying to reconcile what she had heard from them with what Joe had said about the U.S. war crimes in Vietnam. She was wondering about the behavior of the Vietnamese liberation forces.

A couple of students came up to speak to Joe after the class. The father of one is in the military now and remarked that from what he has heard both some of the officers and enlisted do raise questions about how the military is currently being used. He himself feels somewhat conflicted in that he is considering enlisting although he recognizes some of the problems. Another student said his grandfather had been sent to Vietnam and told him some of the same things Joe spoke about. He added that he’s glad Joe is going to schools and speaking out about it.