Friday, March 12, 2004
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Friday, March 12, 2004 |
| Soldier visits pen pals Willis Road Elementary School students recently welcomed home a U.S. soldier after writing letters to him in Iraq during the school year. Willis Road Elementary School met PFC Mike Jackson for the first time Feb. 25. Jackson, a Coweta resident, serves as a medic in the 101st Airborne Division. Willis Road teacher Noel Smith was looking for a soldier for his third-grade class to write to when a family member who knows Jackson’s family suggested him. Smith’s class sent him 20 letters at the beginning of the year. “He has been overseas from right about the time school started until just last week when he came back to the U.S. for a rest,” said Smith. “My class wrote to him just before Christmas, but it takes up to eight weeks for mail to reach him. It is a long process." Smith’s class has written several letters for Jackson to take back with him to Iraq. “He told me that there are many soldiers over there that have no family to write to them; it gets lonely. That is why many of the letters that the other grade levels have written to send are addressed to ‘A Soldier.’” Though Jackson has appreciated the letters, too, Feb.25 was the first chance he has had to tell students so, “because one of our mail planes was shot down in Iraq and that caused the mail to stop for several weeks. By the time flights resumed it was less than a month until he came home so we decided to wait and deliver them in person,” said Smith. Jackson arrived stateside at Fort Campbell, Ky., about two weeks ago and returned home to Coweta County last week.
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