Rest in Peace

     Last week I was told that a former student was killed in Iraq.  Alex was a student who entered my classroom some 16 years ago with a monstrous chip on his shoulder.  However, by the time he left my class he had started to turn things around and over the years that followed was able to recover and graduate high school. He gave me part of the credit for helping him in a letter he wrote to me some years later. He told me it was that I didn’t give up on him, didn’t just throw him out class when he said something ridiculous, and that I made US History fun.  Ultimately it was a single assignment that affected him, a poem I asked him to write from the perspective of a soldier in the Vietnam War.  
    When Alex graduated high school, he joined the Army.  He visited me whenever he was home on leave.  One of his Iraq tours was cut short when he nearly was killed when his unit came under enemy fire. He told me on the day his unit was ambushed he thought of that poem he wrote in 11th grade: But in the end I shall fall like the rest.
   I went back and read Alex's poem when I heard of his passing.  I was struck by these lines--  Looking at pictures of my wife and kids.  Leaving them will be the hardest thing I ever did.  Alex left behind a wife and two children.  He was one of those students who helped me grow as a young teacher.  While I have seen students turn their lives around, he was my first.  I am honored to have been part of his life and am deeply saddened by his loss.