John Devine, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, described for students, staff and parents what it's like to survive a war. His descriptions seemed to bring home to students the horror of war. War is no game, a Vietnam veteran made clear to members of the Hurricane Middle School championship football team and their schoolmates.
War is tears, war is pain, blood, mutilation.
You carry it the rest of your life. The former medical corpsman was injured and sent home from Vietnam after just six months. Vietnam veteran Jimmy Walker of Barboursville, accompanied by his wife, Marie, leads the Pledge of Allegiance for Hurricane Middle School students and guests at their Freedom Festival. Walker labored after a stroke to relearn the pledge to lead it at the school's assembly designed both to honor veterans and highlight the price paid for freedom. That's the price of freedom.