VILLA PARK : Gulf War Vet Visits Pen Pals

Army Sgt. 1st Class Victor Shanks said the hero’s welcome he received when he returned from the Persian Gulf a month ago was nothing compared to the one he got Thursday at John Wayne Airport.

After all, when he arrived at Ft. Stewart, Ga., last month, he was just a face in the crowd. But Thursday, he was a one-man parade, greeted by the 31 members of the “Victor H. Shanks Fan Club” and a media mob.

The welcome-home greeting for Shanks, a tank platoon commander during the Gulf War, was arranged by his fifth-grade pen pals from Villa Park Elementary School, who corresponded with Shanks during the war and then raised $568 by selling candy to fly him from Ft. Stewart to Orange County.

The students, waving flags and yellow balloons and wearing red, white and blue shirts that read, “Victor H. Shanks fan club,” cheered as Shanks, dressed in desert fatigues, stepped off the plane Thursday. Several rushed forward and hugged him.

“I’m overwhelmed. I still don’t believe it,” the 29-year-old father of four said. “I’m pinching myself every so often. They said on the plane that someone had a big crowd and I knew who it was, but I still wasn’t picturing this. . . . I feel like President Bush.”

Shanks will stay with the families of several students during his five-day visit. His agenda is chock-full of picnics, barbecues and softball games, and a trip to Disneyland with the entire class is scheduled.

‘We’re going to have fun for the next five days,” he said.

The event was planned by Villa Park Elementary teacher Ann Hammond and several of her students after they heard that Shanks had returned from the Gulf. During the war, they exchanged several letters after initially sending one to him at random.

“It was an ‘Any Service Member’ letter,” Shanks recalled. “I usually delivered those to someone else, but everyone had gotten one. So I took the letter, and I’m glad I did because look what I got.”

Before the trip to the airport, “the class was getting really excited--Mrs. Hammond was excited and she almost fainted” when she saw Shanks, said fifth-grader Anthony Camou, 12. He added that the best part of Shanks’ visit “was to see he’s alive and cares about us enough to come out here and see us.”

“You can tell by looking at him how personable he is,” Hammond said. “Some of my quietest children were the first to hug him.”

Others also said they were pleased by the safe arrival home of Shanks, whose tank platoon engaged Iraqi forces 17 times in the Euphrates River Valley.

“I felt like screaming (when Shanks arrived) because I never thought that he would really come,” said Richelle Dante, 10. When he was in the Gulf, “I was really worried. I prayed for him like every night.”

After the reception at the airport, Shanks and the students traveled by school bus back to Villa Park Elementary, which was decked out in yellow ribbons and “Welcome Victor Shanks” signs. In the classroom, two girls sang and danced to a recording of the pop hit “Voices That Care,” accompanied sporadically by the rest of the class.

Seated at a student’s desk, Shanks grinned as he watched, and waved a small American flag. Outside, a couple of students from another class pressed their faces against the window to catch a glimpse.

Later, as Shanks smacked a softball and trotted to first base during a game with the students, Hammond said that the students were so excited to see him that he might have trouble keeping pace.

“They’re going to wear him out. He has four kids of his own, but I think these 31 are going to wear him out,” she said.