Mary Edwards Walker

In January 1992 I was asked by the Shaw AFB Public Affairs Unit to speak before a group of Professional Women for their monthly luncheon. Here is the story I told to the ladies that day, a story that stay fresh in my mind to this very day.

 

     A few years ago I was given an opportunity to travel to the pentagon in Washington, D.C. as part of a delegation from Shaw AFB. We were sent to receive the highest award bestowed by the Department of Defense to any military maintenance unit, “The Phoenix Award.”   The Pentagon is a Massive complex housing some of America’s Greatest Historic Treasures and as part of our visit we were to receive a guided tour of this massive facility. I remember the tour well, traveling up endless corridors filled with military paintings of historic figures and glorious battles. Our tour guide, a young marine Corporal, spouted out facts and figures like an automatic weapon firing countless rounds one after another. She was loud as to be heard over the routine noise of business being conducted and she was very professional. The Corporal was well equipped for the job and looked especially good in her Marine Uniform.  I did note that as my mother would say, she had on sensible shoes, ready to walk many miles every day. It seemed to me that she was so accustomed to giving this tour that she could have given it in her sleep, but it seemed to lack any emotion or feeling, just facts and figures, and artifacts. It wasn’t long after thinking this that I was proven wrong. The last stop on the tour was the Hall of Medals; here all the names and deeds of the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor are recorded in painting and displays. As we approached the Corporals voice changed, it became mellow and soft , almost reverent.  She asked a simple question, “How many of you know the name of the only female recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor?” The members of the tour looked at each other puzzled and we all seemed to shrug our shoulders at the same time. As far as we knew no woman had ever been bestowed with the greatest honor our country can bestow on a military professional. Our puzzled looks didn’t surprise the Corporal; she had obviously seen this look on the faces of many visitors to this shrine. She then proceeded to tell us the story of Mary Edwards Walker the only woman recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

 

     Mary Edwards Walker always stood out in a crowd, a woman small in stature but big of heart.  She had graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855 becoming one of the first woman physicians in the country this was an unheard of accomplishment in those days. She preferred pants even at her own wedding and was a staunch supporter and pioneer of woman’s rights.  In 1861 at the outbreak of the civil war and at age 29 she applied for a commission as a U.S. Army Surgeon and was flatly turned down. The reason for her rejection was obvious in those days but none-the-less devastating for Mary. She was rejected because she was a woman. Disappointed but undeterred she worked as a volunteered at Washington Hospital until November 1862 when she presented herself at the Virginia headquarters of Major General Ambrose Burnside and was taken on as a Field Surgeon but only on a voluntary basis. Dr. Walker spent the next two years on the front lines in the uniform of a Union Officer wearing the green sash of a surgeon and sporting a large feather plume from her small union cap. She spent every day caring for the wounded and dying of both union and confederate soldiers.  In the midst of a battle she could be found dodging bullets and performing amputations amid the blood and carnage of America’s battles fields. She was present and tended to the wounded and dying on the battles of Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga to name a few.  After two years of constant service on the battle field she reapplied for a commission and was told because she was a woman she was “utterly unqualified to become an army medical officer.” Undaunted but disappointed she continued in her voluntary work on the battle field. After much perseverance and determination she found one man, Major General George Thomas, who appointed her as a civilian Surgeon in the 52^nd Ohio Infantry and pay her for her services. A month after her appointment she was tending wounded on the front lines when the order came to pull back.  She refused to leave the soldiers screaming for help and stayed on to care for the wounded and dying. She was captured by the enemy and taken to Richmond Prison as a prisoner of war.  She remained at Richmond Prison tending to the sick and injured until she was traded for a Confederate Officer. It is said that Mary always took great pride in what she considered to be a man-for-man swap. Upon her release Mary continued her work and even went on spying missions behind enemy lines. Information she gathered was credited with saving Major General William T. Sherman’s forces from serious reverse and certain defeat.  Mary was eventually removed from the front lines and sent to work out the rest of the war at Louisville woman’s prison and a Tennessee Orphan’s asylum. After the war Mary was released from government service but continued to lobby for a commission in the army.  The Secretary of War at the time, Mr. Stanton, refused her request time after time and considered Mary a pest. President Andrew Johnson was asked about the injustice which was being done to Mary and he ordered an investigation of the facts.  As the truth came to light it was determined that for her heroic deeds in the face of the enemy and for great service to her country she should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Finally in January 1866 President Andrew Jackson presented her with the Medal, yet still refused her the commission she had has always sought.  After the war Mary dedicated herself to the woman’s rights movement.  She supported such controversial issues of the day, like woman wearing pants, smoking, and having the right to vote. She was arrested many times for wearing pants in public. At one trial she asserted her right saying, “Sir, I have the right to dress as I please in a free America on whose tented fields I have served for four years in the cause of human justice.” The judge dismissed the charges against her and ordered that the police never again arrest her for wearing pants.  Mary had many enemies who lobbied hard to have her medal taken away. In 1916 her enemies persuaded the Congress to alter the Medal of Honor Standards in such a way that Mary and other decorated soldiers were no longer eligible to wear the medal.  An Army Board of Review promptly revoked her medal making it a crime for her to wear.  They even sent a detail of mounted officers to retrieve her medal. The Young Calvary officer who was placed in charge of this detail met Mary face-to-face on the porch of her home and demanded the return of the medal. It is said that Mary told the young officer that she had lost he medal and could not find it. The officer scoffed, “Only a woman could lose an item of such value.” And he turned and rode off with the detail of soldiers following behind.  Mary spent the rest of her life protesting this move and claiming her right to wear the medal. It is said that she was often seen wearing the medal at public appearances. Mary died in February 1919 at the age of 86.

 

     Mary’s descendents continued her fight for justice and sixty years after her death the army restored Mary Edwards Congressional Medal of Honor.  President Jimmy Carter, during a ceremony at the White House, presented Mary’s granddaughter with a new minted Medal of Honor. Upon presenting the medal the President remarked that he had heard that Mary had lost the original medal. Mary’s granddaughter, without a moment’s hesitation, reached into her purse and removed a tattered box containing the original medal.  You see, Mary could never bring herself to give up what she truly believed, and was ultimately proven, that she earned in the heroic service of her country.

 

     With the completion of the story the young Corporal turned with the slight glint of a tear in her eye and led us down another nameless corridor and left us all just a little more knowledgeable about the contributions of an American Hero.

Instruction? What Instruction?

By William L. Austin, M.Ed, NBCT
Instruction? What Instruction?

  Where is our instructional time going? Across America teachers have less time to teach and higher expectations than ever before. So, where is all our time going? Well I can tell you we sure have less of it than before in large part because of so many non-instructional demands. Testing takes a huge bite out of the instructional day, with MAP Testing, Universal Screening, State Mandated Readiness Testing, District Benchmark testing, Guided reading assessments which include a reading surveys, comprehension exercises, as well as comprehensive reading evaluations, and let’s not forget PASS testing, PSAT, SAT, ACT, STAR, Work Keys, EOC testing etc. etc. etc. Now if we throw in Anti-Bullying instruction, suicide prevention, SNAP nutritional instruction, and district mandated discipline code training complete with a testing component, the loss of instruction starts to mount. Now let's add fire drills, intruder drills, earth quake drills, tornado drills, and shelter in place drills which are all important, but we are not done yet, we need to add in assemblies for fund raising, walk around the school events, bike safety, spirit days, clubs, teddy bear parades, Story Book Character Parade, puppet shows, Christmas (oops Winter festival) programs, Thanksgiving meals or feasts in the classroom, and other assorted activities. What really amuses me is with all of this going on, I see the poor classroom teacher getting lectured on loss of instructional time because they plan a classroom celebration, an educational field trip, or an unscheduled bathroom break. Somebody needs to look at this issue who understands the problem. While I understand that not every school participates in all the activities and testing I listed above there are so many things I didn’t list such as the amount of time teachers spend collecting money or rolling coins for whatever charity the district or principal wants to support be it Breast Cancer, March of Dimes, Walk-a-thon, Heart Walk, Penny for Patients, St. Jude Leukemia Fund, etc. etc. etc. and don’t forget we need to collect the money for all the fund raisers we are involved in as well. With all this non-instructional stuff going on it is hard to believe we have any time left for instruction at all. And every year the call for more testing gets louder, the demand to evaluate teachers gets heated, and all the while they lose more and more time to do what they are paid for, and that is teach. If you are going to hold teachers accountable then they should have a say in what activities they participate in and which they don't. Politicians love to compare schools to businesses, can you imagine if Wal-Mart closed it doors and stopped selling for employees to practice a fire drill, or for an employee puppet show, or to test all of their employees on their stocking skills, or the use of a cash register? "Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers" we will be closing the store for 45 minutes while we walk around the store to celebrate something or to raise awareness for something, or to raise money for something. This is just not going to happen anywhere but in public schools. Teachers are some pretty awesome folks, even under these conditions they continue to give 100% to their students and manage to provide a good education in spite such obstacles. I just wonder where we could take our students, the heights we could reach, if only teachers controlled their time instead of, politicians and so many other folks who spend their time outside of the classroom.

Morning Car Duty

Morning Car Duty

By Mr. William L. Austin, M.Ed., NBCT

I am a teacher; I have a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees and am nationally board certified, I have eight years of college and the student loan debt to prove it, yet for fifty minutes every morning and forty five minutes every afternoon I open and close car doors. You see, I work in a school with about seven hundred students ages four to six and about two hundred and fifty of them, if not more, are delivered and picked-up from school each and every day by a parent. I am charged with the supervision of this task everyday for 180 school days. Much like our fast food society today we offer a curbside pick-up and delivery service. You drive up in the morning we will open your car door and help your child safely exit the vehicle and enter the school building for an exciting day of rip roaring fun and educational adventure. In the afternoon you drive-up we will verify who you are and match you up with the correct student and send you happily on your way. Our performance has to be 100% everyday and unlike my favorite college football team we can’t afford to lose one. I know this job is not unique to me or to my school just about every elementary school has a system like ours, a system that is tried and tested and very frustrating at times.
Let me start by saying that if you see yourself in any of my descriptions that follow, know we still love you and your child, but understand that teachers talk and sometimes share their experiences. Let’s start with the invention of the “Stow and Go” mini-van door. We have about thirty parents, who drive vans with this new modern convince, the ability to open the door with the push of a button from inside. The door can also be opened from the outside without the power assist. Now some parents and children absolutely delight in pushing that button and watching that door open, others not so much. Problem is we don’t know which. One moment some well meaning parent will be explaining that the door opens itself and that I shouldn’t, and the next, a parent wants to know why I’m not opening the door for her child. Some children are so obsessed with the magic of the button that if we open the door the child will have a fit and refuse to get out. In this case you would be forgiven if you thought the parent would apologize for their child’s behavior, when in fact, the parent blames us and proceeds to lectures us on the protocol of opening her door. Maybe we need a flashing neon light on the car telling us to touch or not touch? There are four of us who open doors every morning and we spread out under a roof that spans 200 plus feet allowing us to serve four customers at a time in varying weather conditions and makes the process very efficient or at least it should be. Unfortunately, we have parents who decide that the best time to check a child’s homework folder is in the morning while thirty other cars wait behind them, or the parent who stopped on the way to school at the local fast food restaurant and wants little Johnny to finish his McMuffin while you hold the door open and then asks if you would please take the trash. We also have the parents who are still dressing the child for school when they drive up and asks you to please tie the child’s shoes as they drive off. Then there is the parent who wants to ask questions about the field trip, PTA Meeting, school pictures, lunch account, or any other topic that we have sent countless notes home for weeks in advance. Or the child who only wants a particular staff member to open their door and must hold up the line while they wait for that staff member to open their door. We open the door for children who are puking as momma says, “will you please send them to the nurses office”, we open the doors of cars whose music is blaring so loudly you need ear protection and now you understand why the child can’t hear you in the classroom, you open the door to parents who are cussing and fighting with each other as they ignore the child we happily unload. We see these things every morning, moms who are in such a rush that they themselves are barely clothed when they drive up in scanty night ware with robes hanging open as they wash their children’s faces with mom’s spit and a napkin left over from the latest trip to the fast food restaurant. Some cars are so full of trash it spills out of the car onto the road and you are expected to pick it up when they drive off. We keep a bottle of hand sanitizer available to help with some of the more unique substances we find on the door handles each day. We get fussed at for not closing a door hard enough, or for closing a door too hard, for not allowing students in earlier, or for not holding the door open long after the tardy bell rings. We are either too happy, or someone doesn’t like our attitude. We only allow loading or unloading of the car on the curbside of the car for the safety of the child but if mom has the car seat for the new baby on the wrong side and decides she’s going to unload where she wants, it then becomes somehow our fault and blesses us out. Yes, morning duty is a mine field of fun but the daily hugs from the kids and an occasional thank you from a grateful parent makes all of the fussing seem insignificant. That is until afternoon car duty which is a story for another day.