Remembering Two of Their Own in Gulf

As the United States and its allies braced for war Wednesday, teacher Dorie Howell and kindergartners at Calvary Baptist School held an assembly and service honoring two former students, twin brothers stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Howell videotaped the service at the Gardena school to show support for Darren Roberts, an Army paratrooper, and his brother David, a Marine infantryman. They were among Howell’s class of 1974-75.

“The more I heard on the news, and the more I thought about my kids over there, my heart was just burdened,” Howell said.

Just a few hours before war broke out, Howell’s kindergartners sang religious and patriotic songs and knelt in prayer for the Roberts brothers, as well as the thousands of troops stationed in the gulf. Two boxes were placed at the front of the church, and one by one, the students came forward and added to them candy, handmade cards and letters and mementos of kindergarten good-behavior awards: gold stars and cotton balls dubbed “warm fuzzies.” In a third box, designated for delivery to the people of Iraq, they placed messages of peace.

At the end of the service, Howell’s pet dove, appropriately named “Peace,” was uncaged in a symbolic release. The bird briefly fluttered about the schoolyard but soon settled in the shrubbery nearby.

Lori Roberts, mother of the two servicemen, told the assembly that she and parents like her had to let go of their loved ones. But, said Roberts: “We’re proud of them, and they’re serving their country. We just pray that everyone will support them.”

The students’ messages, carefully crayoned on construction paper, will be mailed to the Roberts brothers, along with the package for the citizens of Iraq. One letter, intended for an Iraqi, contained a drawing of a house. “This is an American house,” the letter read. “I’d like to see yours someday.”