2016 Memorial Day Module

Memorial Day is the day that should have the deepest meaning to Americans and most certainly military veterans and their families. It is a day which recognizes the ultimate sacrifice of American servicemen and servicewoman who offered up their lives in the defense of their country or to help free those oppressed around the world. 

There was a tradition started during World War Two. Most young men volunteered for wartime service overseas and their families of would place a Blue Star Pennant in the window of their house. The Blue Star Families or Parents would demonstrate their family's service through the Blue Star Pennants. Should the family member be killed in combat they transition to becoming a Gold Star Family or Parents. The number one concern for a family who lost a service member in combat is that their country (all of you) not forget who their son or daughter was as a person. 

THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY Brien McMahon HS NAVY JROTC CONTINUES TO PRESENT THIS MEMORIAL DAY MODULE IS TO ENSURE OUR FALLEN ARE NOT FORGOTTEN BY THEIR FELLOW AMERICANS INCLUDING OUR CLASSMATES. 

  
Class Task One: Watch a recent 60 Minutes show (13 minutes) about Gold Star Parents . (Click on the Link)

Class Task Two: On May 3 & 4th (Tuesday and Wednesday), you will watch the movie Taking Chance which is based on a true story of the sacrifice make by a young Marine (Chance Phillips) and his journey back to his family and comrades until his military burial. 

"And I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I am free. And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me."  

Songwriter Lee Greenwood

Medal of Honor Recipient Assignment

You need to have two 8 X 11 papers: 

• Head shot photo [preferably color] or an individual picture
• Facts about this Medal of Honor Recipient

8 X 11 papers will be mounted on black construction paper.

Photo page will include Recipient’s photo, name and the Battle where KIA.

Your job is to make that person KIA to come alive through your presentation.

DUE: Friday May 15^th.

Ferguson Missouri Shooting Overview

We are using the ongoing situation in Ferguson Missouri as a vignette in which to analyze the difference between subjectivity (opinions, emotions) and objectivity (facts) it is important to break down the major aspects of this situation: 

Alleged Crime --->  Police Response ---> Police Encounter --->

Shooting Incident ---> Public Response to Shooting / Protest --->

Police Response to Public Response / Riot --->

Post Incident Investigation (Local / State / Federal) --->

Public Response to Grand Jury --->

Discussion Considerations: 

• Role of Leaders 
• Family
• Community
• Local / State / Federal

• Role of Media 
• Reporting News or Making News
• Subjective Reporting versus Objective Reporting
• Impact of Social Media
• What Would You Do Differently?
• 
  

Developing an Aptitude for Objectivity...Going from what you feel towards what you know

WORD BANK / CONCEPT BANK:  

OBJECTIVE              OPINION VERSUS FACT       ANALYSIS
RACE                         ROLE OF POLICE                   PROTEST     MEDIA / PRESS        PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY
RACISM                     ABUSE OF POWER                RIOTING     FAIR and BALANCED REPORTING                      LEADERSHIP
SUBJECTIVE

Definitions:

• Subjective: placing excessive emphasis on one's mood, attitudes, and opinions.  

• Objective: not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice, based on facts, unbiased.

Task: Discuss the meaning of the words and concepts above. 


Food for Thought: This is foundational to start our journey on developing an aptitude for looking at each situation objectively and developing the ability to simultaneously maintain a balance between intellect and emotions.  

CASE STUDY: 

MICHAEL BROWN

FERGUSON, MISSOURI

DARREL WILSON

Task:  Take out your notebook and think about these three words and write what you know about them.  

Lets Talk About Commitment and Being Involved as a Cadet

This is a picture of Jackie Calzada who is now a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. She was a member of our NJROTC program and after graduating she committed to her country by joining the military. Other cadets who graduated committed to getting a college education, civil service, and foreign service. 

Let's talk about the words: involvement and commitment.

INVOLVEMENT:(VERB) to include as a necessary circumstance, condition, or consequence;imply; entail, to engage or employ. 

COMMITMENT: 
(NOUN) the act of pledging, engaging,obligation, and involvement. 

As you watch the film Remember The Titans, thinks about how the followers choose to commit to leave their group and get involved in the process of joining a new group. 

Think of how the leaders (coaches and team captains) get others to commit and get involved in forming a new team just like we are trying to improve our NJROTC team.   

How is the POTUS Doing?

How is President Barack Obama doing as our President? 

1. Form into 5 person small groups.

2. Determine in your groups opinion how POTUS is doing both domestically and in foreign affairs?

3. Use all of the resources you have available.

Lincoln's Call to Service—and Ours

A proposal that would help young Americans understand that civic duty is not restricted to the military.

A version of this article appeared May 30, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Lincoln's Call to Service—and Ours.

By STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL

     My father first took me to Gettysburg when I was 12 years old. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Army, home from the first of two tours in Vietnam. I remember in particular the hundreds of obelisks poking over the berms, the oxidized plaques attached to rocks and the statues lining the roadways. All spoke for the thousands of men and boys who had died in the grass and dirt serving their nation. I was young, but I recognized the gravity of the place.
     Though I went on to have a career in the military, the visits to Gettysburg with my father were not preparation for soldiering as much as they were early lessons in citizenship—a particular understanding of citizenship that President Lincoln defined and challenged us to fulfill when he delivered his famous address there. It's a citizenship that does not simply reflect upon the sacrifices of others, but that honors their sacrifice through action: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."
     Today, as ever, the task is unfinished. Yet the duties of citizenship have fallen from the national agenda. Talk of service is largely confined to buoyant commencement ceremonies. And too often it is just that: talk. Less than 1% of Americans serve in the military—a historic low during wartime—leading to a broad, complacent assumption that serving the nation is someone else's job. As we've allowed our understanding of service to be so narrowly limited to the uniform, we've forgotten Lincoln's audience: With the armies still fighting, the president exhorted a crowd of civilians on their duty to carry forward the nation's work.
     It is right that we send off the young Americans graduating this month from high school, college and professional schools with speeches. They should be congratulated for completing the many exams now behind them. But we must remember another test—Lincoln's test of citizenship—and begin to mark these important junctures in life not just with words, but with real-world commitment. Universal national service should become a new American rite of passage. Here is a specific, realistic proposal that would create one million full-time civilian national-service positions for Americans ages 18-28 that would complement the active-duty military—and would change the current cultural expectation that service is only the duty of those in uniform.
     At age 18, every young man and woman would receive information on various options for national service. Along with the five branches of the military, graduates would learn about new civilian service branches organized around urgent issues like education, health care and poverty. The positions within these branches would be offered through AmeriCorps as well as through certified nonprofits. Service would last at least a year.
     Returning military veterans would be treated as the civic assets they are and permitted to use a portion of their GI Bill benefits to support a period of civilian national service, since such service helps them transition to life back home. The new service opportunities would be created in accordance with the smart rules that have guided AmeriCorps since its founding in 1994, which allow that program to field tens of thousands of service members without displacing workers and who fill vital niches their paid colleagues do not.
     Serving full-time for a year or two needs to be a realistic option for all young Americans, regardless of their family's finances. So civilian service positions would be modestly paid, as AmeriCorps positions are now. (Most AmeriCorps service-members receive a $12,100 stipend for the year, and if they complete their term of service, a $5,550 scholarship to help cover tuition or to pay off student loans.) Government agencies focused on the challenges that these service-members address, as well as the corporations that will benefit from employing Americans whose leadership will be cultivated by service, should step up to fund these efforts. Instead of making national service legally mandatory, corporations and universities, among other institutions, could be enlisted to make national service socially obligatory. Schools can adjust their acceptance policies and employers their hiring practices to benefit those who have served—and effectively penalize those who do not.
     More than most Americans realize, the demand to serve already exists. In 2011, there were nearly 600,000 applications to AmeriCorps—a program with only 80,000 positions, only half of which are full time. The Peace Corps received 150,000 requests for applications but has funding for only 4,000 new positions each year. This gap represents democratic energy wasted and a generation of patriotism needlessly squandered.
     Some, particularly after having just observed Memorial Day, might think that only war is capable of binding a generation and instilling true civic pride. But you don't have to hear the hiss of bullets to develop a deeper claim to the nation. In my nearly four decades in the military, I saw young men and women learn the meaning and responsibilities of citizenship by wearing the uniform in times of both peace and war. They were required to work with people of different backgrounds, introduced to teamwork and discipline, unified by common tests, and brought even closer by sacrifice. Some discovered, often to their surprise, that they were leaders.
     This transformation is not exclusive to the military. Those who disagree need only visit young teachers working 18-hour days together in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. In rural Colorado health clinics, in California's forests, or Midwest neighborhoods devastated by tornadoes, skeptics would see teams of young people—affluent and poor, college-educated and not—devoting their days to a singular, impactful mission.
     Universal national service would surely face obstacles. But America is too big, and our challenges too expansive, for small ideas. To help stem the high-school dropout crisis, to conserve rivers and parks, to prepare for and respond to disasters, to fight poverty and, perhaps most important, to instill in all Americans a sense of civic duty, the nation needs all its young people to serve.
Whatever the details of a specific plan, the objective must be a cultural shift that makes service an expected rite of citizenship. Anything less fails Lincoln's test.

Gen. McChrystal, a former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan and of the Joint Special Operations Command, is the chairman of the Leadership Council of the Franklin Project on national service at the Aspen Institute.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITY

1. INDIVIDUALLY READ General McChrystal's ARTICLE. Once your read the speech, in class you will create a draft outline for the speech and for homework you will refine the speech and research it for time. It is recommended that you read & re-read his article a number of times in the refinement of your speech. 

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:

PREPARE a one minute and thirty second (1:30) long speech agreeing or disagreeing with Gen. McChrystal's opinion about national service. Ensure there is an introduction, a few specific points supporting your concurrence or non-concurrence and end with a conclusion. Your speech will be given in class on Tuesday. Your grade will reflect the quality effort of preparation and speech execution within the confines of 1 minute and thirty seconds.

Memorial Day Module: Somalia 1993

As we approach Memorial Day, this year we are going to focus on a more recent combat operation, Operation GOTHIC SERPENT in October 1993 in Somalia. Above is the Medal of Honor Citation awarded to Master Sergeant Gary Gordon (as well as his fellow sniper Randall Shugart), 1st SFOD posthumously for their actions on that day.

Reference A: A quick synopsis of the Operation is included here (check this out on your own):
Operation Gothic Serpent Wikipedia

Reference B: For a more formal version of the operation go to the Army Historical Branch version:
US Army in Somalia

We will start this module by reading the above citation that I want you to consider the price paid by American fighting men and woman everyday. With less than 1% of the American population serving in the military and of that 1% an even smaller number of those serviceman serving in a combat environment, it is important for you as an informed and involved citizen to be aware of their sacrifice for our freedom.

Let's get oriented to Somalia to gain some perspective on the country, the people, the politics, and the environment, here is a short video:

Reference C1: 1992 1993 Starvation in Somalia
Reference C2: http://youtu.be/pRAsT5EBXZo  (Post 1993 Anti-Americanism)

Reference D: Now let's review The Battle of The Black Sea by watching the following documentary:

History Channel Black Hawk Down

We will watch the movie: Black Hawk Down and present our upperclassmen battle studies and Memorial Day remembrances based upon that operation and the bravery, heroism, and sacrifice made that day.

Reference E: Black Hawk Down (The Movie)