The Gulf War Chills Classrooms When Pen Pals Die

When school started in September, a class of fifth-graders in Rochester, like children all across the country, became pen pals with a serviceman who was part of Operation Desert Shield.

But Desert Shield became Desert Storm, and suddenly some of the pen pals were dying.

American casualties in the Persian Gulf War have been relatively few, but death already has touched scores of children who got to know the men through letters and photographs.

Such as Marine Lance Cpl. Dion Stephenson, who corresponded with fifth-graders at Gates-Chili School District in suburban Rochester. Stephenson, of Bountiful, Utah, was one of the first Americans killed in action.

Teachers trained in crisis counseling spoke with the children, who later put up a bulletin board to honor their pen pal. A picture Stephenson sent to the class was used in the display.

A month after Iraq invaded Kuwait, at the start of the school year, grade-school teachers encouraged their students to write to U.S. troops. It seemed a good way to tie the crisis to lessons on current events, geography and history.

“To some degree we’ve put our students at risk. We’ve gone from a general knowledge of a person to a more personal level,” said Jacob Romo, executive director of the Sullivan County, N.Y., department of community services.

Marine Cpl. Stephen Bentzlin of Wood Lake, Minn., was one of 11 Marines killed in the first sustained ground battle of the war. Elementary school children in his hometown had sent him art projects, and a fifth-grade class from nearby Granite Falls received a letter from him before his death.

“The night before (before they learned of Bentzlin’s death) it was just statistics. Then it . . . comes home to a little town of 400 people,” said Myron Hagelstrom, an accounting teacher at Echo-Wood Lake Cooperative High School.

Also killed was James Lumpkins, a Marine lance corporal from New Richmond, Ohio. Lumpkins was pen pal to a third-grade class in his hometown, a class that includes his 8-year-old sister, Sherry.

“I have ridden many camels since I’ve been in this country. It is very fun,” Lumpkins wrote to the class, taught by his own first-grade teacher. “There isn’t much else to do over here. I have been over here for almost five months. I am ready to come home.”