Students Grapple With Harsh Lessons of Battle

For students at El Modena High School on Thursday, talk of war and peace, military strategy, troop movements and international conflict was suddenly more than just an exercise in social studies.

There was an air of excitement mixed with expectancy and uncertainty on the 1,700-student campus the morning after U.S.-led forces began attacking Iraq. For most of the students, the war marked the first national cataclysm in their young lives.

“Our parents went through Vietnam, and what they went through then we’re going to go through now,” said Leslie Ventimiglia, 17. “I’m not really afraid, I’m just unsure. There’s no reason for me to doubt the government yet because I’ve never had an experience like this before.”

Younger students were no less concerned about events. At San Marino Elementary School in Buena Park, sixth-graders watched television reports of unfolding hostilities and admitted that thoughts of war haunted them at night.

“I get scared,” said 12-year-old Steven Wright. “I had nightmares that I was in the war.”

The students, about 30 of them, wore yellow ribbons in support of the troops, some in their hair and others tied them around legs, wrists and ankles.

Teacher Susan Singleton said care should be taken when explaining the intricacies of war to younger children, and noted that many of her students had developed a fascination with guns and violence since the gulf crisis had begun.

Psychologists generally agree that information about war, if explained with patience and an awareness of the children’s level of understanding, need not frighten them.

“While I think war is terrible, children can come out quite strong,” said Irvine psychologist and military consultant Iriet Peshkess. “If parents, teachers and the community as a whole band together, it can be used to produce internal strength and can be a growing experience rather than a stumbling block.”

All around the El Modena campus, students expressed a sense of the emergency. Between classes, many huddled in small groups to discuss the rightness and the wrongness of war while others wore radio headsets tuned to all-news channels.

Inside the classroom, discussion was also given over to the war, whether the class was math, economics or history.

In a public address announcement that preceded classes, students were told that school counselors were available to help them sort out their emotions about the war. The Orange Unified School District had also placed a crisis response team at the ready, said Gail Seal, El Modena’s principal.

“So far, its been very calm. There is heartfelt concern but the students are composed,” Seal said.

In fact, most students surveyed were all for the war.

“I’m for it totally,” said 18-year-old Andy Bourdelais, who stood in a courtyard of the campus with a group of friends. “Hussein needs to be stopped now--if we don’t do anything, he won’t stop where he is. I think he’s as bad as Hitler.”

For 18-year-old Spencer Shuler, that fact that several of his cousins are now in the Persian Gulf did not deter his views.

“I’m not worried, I think they’ve been planning this for a long time,” he said.

Many students also held little sympathy for peace protesters, arguing that the public should offer support to President Bush rather than condemnation.

“The peace movement I’ve seen so far is almost like a paradox; it seems to be peace through violence,” 17-year-old Adam Bowman said during a a U.S. history class.

However, some students were more questioning of U.S policy.

“I don’t see why any lives should be lost in a war that should have been resolved by the Iraqis and Kuwaitis,” said Daniel McClellan, 17. “I see this as U.S imperialistic policy taking over.”

The students in McClellan’s senior economics class were subdued and serious during their discussion of events.

“This has put war close to us,” one said. “We have to put our chips on the table--whether we support it or not and if there’s a draft, whether we go or we don’t go.”