BHS pays tribute to veterans with inspirational words and music
Photo by Joanne Beck
Batavia High School’s combined chorus usually sings a few patriotic songs for the school’s annual tribute to veterans, and ninth-grader Keegan Fisher was there for his dad’s first visit to the ceremony.
Although he has no aspirations to follow his father’s path to serve in the U.S. Army, Keegan respects how it has shaped him.
“I think it’s pretty cool. He doesn’t take any (nonsense) from anyone,” the high school freshman said Thursday after the hour-long ceremony. “He doesn’t like when people don’t treat others right.”
His dad, David Fisher, is a 1987 BHS grad who has been too busy to attend any of the school's previous veteran ceremonies. He was glad to have had the opportunity to make this one on his birthday, he said.
“I attend all the veterans events that I can. I'm with the Patriot Guard riders. We escort people to their final resting place, and that usually winds up taking quite a bit of my time … going to the National Cemetery, local cemeteries, wherever the vet decides to be buried at, that's where we go,” Fisher said. “Not only being a veteran, but being a combat vet, we really don't get a whole lot of thank-yous. So when we do, when we get something like this, it means a lot.”
He signed up for the Army because he “didn’t really anything to do after high school,” and ended up soaking up an eight-year experience to the fullest, he said.
“I wanted to travel, so I kind of figured, what better way to travel then joint he service; they sent you everywhere. It actually turned out to be probably the best decision I’ve ever made,” he said. “I grew up a lot. I learned different cultures from around the world. I also learned the worst that people can do to each other as well. It was just a good experience all the way around. I enjoyed every minute, or almost every minute, of it. I did six months in Panama and two years in the Gulf War.”
High School Principal Jenny Wesp welcomed all of the visiting veterans and noted the high school’s own vets, Greg Ciszak, Chris Weicher and Chris Gorton, plus Board of Education member Chezeray Rolle.
The chorus sang the “Batavia Alma Mater,” the “National Anthem,” and “Flanders Field,” based on a poem by John McCrae dating back to World War I. The poem's setting is Flanders, a former county in what is now Belgium with a strategically favorable location on the North Sea — great for trade and commerce while also an invitation for many battles, Wesp said.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Photo by Joanne Beck
The BHS wind and string ensembles performed patriotic numbers tucked around keynote speaker and Air Force veteran Sharon Chaplain, who attended Jackson Elementary and Batavia Middle schools from 1979 to 1983 before moving out of the area.
Now a resident of Brockport, she shared her humble beginnings at Jackson.
“To say I was quiet and shy is really an understatement,” she said. “I didn’t speak in school. In fact, one of my high school teachers used to read my lips because I wouldn’t speak up. I’d get so nervous that I would throw up. In fact, I threw up in the Jackson school library when I started school there.”
She asked the audience of mostly high school students, “How many of you have ever been told you can’t do something?” and promised to return to that question at the end of her talk.
Despite her immense timidness, Chaplain wanted to attend college, but she realized two things: college is expensive when paying for it yourself, and that it could be the means to an end of being stuck with her mother. Yes, she loves her mother, but “she was a little bit controlling and I knew that if I didn’t do something drastic, I would be stuck with her for the rest of my life,” Chaplain said.
So, she decided to take a test to join military service. Her first choice was the Navy, which had already met its quota, so she entered the Air Force. She passed that initial test and received notice that she was to begin that November.
“And everybody said ‘you’re not even going to make it through basic training. And to be honest with you, I didn’t think I was going to do it. I wasn’t athletic, didn’t go out for sports,” she said. “But I knew that I had to do something. So I got on the plane … and if you’ve ever seen anything about basic training in the military, it’s pretty much, and I can verify this, it’s pretty much you’re getting screamed at, you’re cleaning and you’re exercising the whole time. And after a couple days, I thought I made the worst mistake in my life.”
It took some more time for her to have a bit of a paradigm shift: this existence, minus perhaps all of the exercising, wasn’t much different than living with her mother, she said. And she observed that when recruits cried or complained, “the instructors were screaming at them all the more.”
She pushed through and graduated basic training, moving on to technical school, where she learned her job and first assignment. Chaplain ended up being sent to South Korea, a place she hadn’t envisioned when dreaming about where in the world she might get sent to. Her stint was during Desert Storm, and it took more perseverance to be stationed in hostile territory, she said.
During some letter exchanges with folks back home, her enthusiasm for mail waned until she received a package from a 9-year-old girl who sent her puzzle books and games and began to ask her questions. They communicated until Chaplain wrote what would be the final letter. She suggested that this little girl respect the flag and the “Star-Spangled Banner” and those who wear the uniform and what that represents for the United States.
She didn’t hear back from that girl for several years, and wondered if she had offended her. It wasn’t until 25 years later that they met each other, and discovered how each had comforted the other during difficult personal times through those letters and their words.
“So to bring it back to where I started, if anybody tells you you can’t do something, you can’t make a difference, remember this story. A 9-year-old girl made a difference in my life,” she said. “You know, all you have to do to make a difference is take one small step outside of your comfort zone because that's what she did, and that's what I did in joining the service, and that's all it is.”
Photo by Joanne Beck
