St. Helena students tell final WWI vet’s story
(12-29) 20:58 PST — Just before 7:30 a.m., a dozen St. Helena High School students gathered for their first class of the day, a good hour before their peers showed up for the school.
Coffee in hand, the students are studying World War I.
It’s likely the only elective course of its kind in a U.S. high school - focusing on the so-called War to End All Wars, a conflict quickly covered in regular history classes and left in the historical dust of World War II.
“It gets kind of forgotten and glossed over,” said Webster Rasmussen, 16, looking surprisingly alert at 7:30 a.m. World War I “set the stage for the rest of the century.”
And then the high school junior launched into an explanation of what he’s learned so far - how a relatively small conflict that started in Serbia spread as alliances forced other countries to take sides.
“It was almost a war of honor, I guess,” Rasmussen said.
But the Great War isn’t just the stuff of textbooks for these students. It’s personal. They now know someone who was there.
On the field trip of a lifetime, two of the St. Helena students traveled to West Virginia with their teacher to meet 107-year-old Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I. The students recorded his memories of the war and his life - an interview the Library of Congress now wants.
The class is also producing a documentary on the war featuring Buckles….