Technical Sergeant Charles Clayton, retired, listens to the Cool Cats Chorus of Brookwood School perform "In Flanders Fields" during Friday's ceremony. Brookwood students gathered for a morning ceremony at their school's flagpole to honor veterans Friday. Several of the veterans present were given breakfast at the school and offered opportunities to speak with classes.DALTON, Ga. - The white-haired men bent over to hug dozens of schoolchildren whose heads scarcely reached the belts of their neatly pressed dress uniforms.
The children handed them handwritten cards neatly penned in block letters and whispered "thank you."
"This is what it is all about - the children," said George Lo Greco, a Dalton Marine who served in Vietnam for three years.
Lo Greco and more than a dozen other local veterans were honored Friday morning in a Veterans Day ceremony at Brookwood Elementary School. Many of the veterans served in the Vietnam War, but others have served more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The schoolchildren, standing in the chilly fall air, watched as the veterans raised the flag while Lo Greco played the bugle. They joined in the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the national anthem before returning to their classrooms. Some of them held large signs thanking the veterans, while others wore flag headbands.
Lizbeth Figueroa, who is stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, and has a daughter enrolled at Brookwood, said it meant a lot to have the school recognize veterans.
"The kids look up to us; it was good to come today," Figueroa said.
Figueroa said she took a week's leave to come home to Dalton to celebrate her daughter's sixth birthday. It has been hard to miss out on so much of her daughter's life, with her first tour of duty when her daughter was only 7 months old, she said.
"But it's worth it," she said. "I love my country and want to serve. I know my daughter is proud of me."
After the ceremony, Lo Greco visited classrooms to talk to children about serving in the military. In a fourth-grade class, he encouraged the students to study hard and stay in school.
"The most powerful weapon in the world is your brain," he told them. "All the wars in the world are started by people with weak minds and ended by people with strong minds."
Lo Greco also answered rapid-fire questions about weapons such as AK-47s and Uzis from the class and talked about being in Vietnam during that war.
Ten-year-old Alonso Grimaldo, who listened intently during the conversation, said learning from veterans helped him better understand his cousin, who recently joined the Army.
"It makes me learn what their lives are like," Grimaldo said.
