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Former Airman connects school children with deployed heroes

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kia Atkins
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

Twenty-six volunteers from the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron participated in a video meet-and-greet called “Holler at a Hero,” in honor of U.S. veterans, Nov 13.

James Wilson, a former U.S. security forces Airman, now a school teacher, developed the “Holler at a Hero” project to allow his fifth-grade students to have face-to-face interaction, via online video-messaging services, with deployed servicemembers.  The project was an opportunity for the students to talk with their heroes and discuss their job duties, day-to-day activities and any personal challenges they face while in a deployed environment.

 “I think this project is helpful to the children, especially if they have friends or family members that are in the military,” said Airman 1st Class Cassie Starr, a security forces Airman assign to the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron here, who participated in the project.   “It helps explain to them what it is we do, so they can see that maybe it’s not all that scary and they can actually take away good things from it. Hopefully this will give them a positive mentality so they don’t have to worry about their friends or family who are serving in the armed forces.”

The students put together scripted questions they wanted to ask their assigned heroes and also provided their heroes with short biographies about themselves.

The little girl I talked to has horses and wanted to know if I have any pets,” said Starr. “She wanted to know what I do on a daily basis and if I like it here.”

The project was put together with the help of Wilson and Staff Sgt. Tamika Whitfield, 379th ESFS, who served together during a deployment in 2008. A total of 26 students were paired up with one of the 26 volunteers from the 379th ESFS.

During a discussion, Wilson mentioned to Whitfield that he was talking about one of his prior deployments in his classroom and was intrigued by the questions the students were asking him, such as “How did you get water over there?”

 “That’s why he decided to put on this event,” said Whitfield. “He reached out to me because he knew I was deployed, and with the help of my fellow defenders who volunteered to assist we were able to get this event to happen.”

With many parents deployed here, the video meet-and greets, were intended to help family members get an idea of how well things are for their loved ones, despite being far from home  supporting operations throughout the Central Command area of operations.

“I know we have a lot of parents deployed out here that are away from their families,” said Whitfield. “We want to let our families and kids know that we are all doing good out here,  and that they don’t have to stress about it, we’re doing fine. That kind of puts a lot of our families at ease and that’s one of the reasons we’re doing this project. We can let our families see how well we’re doing and that can kind of put the stress away.”