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El Dorado, Kan. —
Fifth and sixth graders at Oil Hill Elementary School received a special surprise on their next to last day of school.
The students had begun writing to a soldier stationed in Iraq several weeks ago. On Wednesday, the students’ teachers were called to the office for a package that had arrived. Since they couldn’t leave the students in their classrooms, they had them come with them and wait in the hall. To the students’ surprise, the soldier they had been corresponding with walked out of the office.
Tsgt. William Leggett, who is in the Air National Guard, made a special trip to Oil Hill after returning from his deployment last week.
Their correspondence began by chance.
Leggett, who had recently been deployed at the time, was doing laundry when he found the students’ letters in the trash. He pulled them out and started reading them.
“My heart sunk because you guys took time to write the letters,” he said.
He felt someone should take the time to write back.
“So what was your thought when you sent those letters out?” he asked. “Were you ever thinking you would get them back?”
They students agreed they were surprised.
They had written to other soldiers in the past, but they always wrote to someone the teachers knew, either a former student or a spouse of a co-worker. This time they had written to “dear soldier.” It was voluntary which students wanted to write, with more wanting to start writing after Leggett’s visit.
“I got your letters and wrote every single one of you,” Leggett said. “A lot of people said why are you writing each one and why not just copy them?”
But he wanted them to be more personal than that. He answered each student’s questions and talked to them about various topics, as well as sending birthday cards to the students.
He hand-delivered his last letters to the students.
A copy of students’ letters are going to be placed in the KU Historical Archives, as well as the students keeping the original letters in notebooks they had put together.
During his visit, the students got to find out even more about Leggett and his time in Iraq.
“Go outside and picture very little trees and picture tan or brown,” he said when asked what it was like there. “Even the sky looked brown.”
It also was 107 to 109 degrees when he left.
He showed the students a bottle of dirt from Iraq. He said there actually was little sand there, with most being dirt. Leggett was in Iraq for four months, leaving the U.S. on Jan. 2.
“When it gets wet, it is like cement,” he said, explaining that it would get caked on their boots making them weigh 30 or 40 pounds.
“There was no grass in Iraq,” he continued. “Just little sprouts here and there.”
While there, he got to visit some of Saddam’s palaces, which were all made of marble. He showed the kids a piece of marble from one of the palaces.
He told of one palace with a chandalier half the size of their classroom.
Saddam had nine palaces.
“There was enough marble there to build this whole school,” he said.
One palace they visited, which was still under construction, was the Victory of America Palace, which he was building because he thought he could conquer America.
Leggett’s job in Iraq was force protection. His unit watched the contractors and people on the base to make sure they were kept safe. This was his third tour, with the first two being in Kuwait.
His day would start at about 10 a.m. when he would get up. He then worked from noon to midnight. After he got off work he would check e-mail then go to the gym, returning to bed about 2 or 3 a.m.
“We had a gym, movie tent, basketball and ping pong,” he said. “We couldn’t get off base a lot.”
Because of that he didn’t interact much with Iraqis.
While in Iraq, he did hear a lot of gunfire and experienced a couple of mortar attacks.
When asked what was the scariest thing that happened, he explained about one of the mortar attacks.
“I could see the control tower of Baghdad International Airport,” he said.
He heard across the runway people yelling “incoming.”
They ran into a hard place.
“The mortar shook the area I was in,” he said.
The students also asked about the food and water over there.
Leggett said they had hundreds of pallets of bottled water that came from a purification plant in Iraq and their food was shipped in.
The students asked Leggett if he would go back to Iraq again.
“If I had the opportunity, I would,” he said.
He also encouraged anyone interested in the military to join.
“It’s fun, it’s enjoyable,” he said. “You get to go places and meet new people.”
Leggett has been in the military for 25 years now.
When asked what he missed most about home while deployed, he said the smell of fresh air and the colors, as well as the ability to just get in a car and drive wherever he wants.
Leggett also was asked about the troops leaving Iraq.
“If we pulled out it would be like a vacuum,” he said. “It would be chaos. It would defeat all we’ve done so far.”
He also said the Iraqi police force is getting stronger.
Fifth and sixth graders at Oil Hill Elementary School received a special surprise on their next to last day of school.
The students had begun writing to a soldier stationed in Iraq several weeks ago. On Wednesday, the students’ teachers were called to the office for a package that had arrived. Since they couldn’t leave the students in their classrooms, they had them come with them and wait in the hall. To the students’ surprise, the soldier they had been corresponding with walked out of the office.
Tsgt. William Leggett, who is in the Air National Guard, made a special trip to Oil Hill after returning from his deployment last week.
Their correspondence began by chance.
Leggett, who had recently been deployed at the time, was doing laundry when he found the students’ letters in the trash. He pulled them out and started reading them.
“My heart sunk because you guys took time to write the letters,” he said.
He felt someone should take the time to write back.
“So what was your thought when you sent those letters out?” he asked. “Were you ever thinking you would get them back?”
They students agreed they were surprised.
They had written to other soldiers in the past, but they always wrote to someone the teachers knew, either a former student or a spouse of a co-worker. This time they had written to “dear soldier.” It was voluntary which students wanted to write, with more wanting to start writing after Leggett’s visit.
“I got your letters and wrote every single one of you,” Leggett said. “A lot of people said why are you writing each one and why not just copy them?”
But he wanted them to be more personal than that. He answered each student’s questions and talked to them about various topics, as well as sending birthday cards to the students.
He hand-delivered his last letters to the students.
A copy of students’ letters are going to be placed in the KU Historical Archives, as well as the students keeping the original letters in notebooks they had put together.
During his visit, the students got to find out even more about Leggett and his time in Iraq.
“Go outside and picture very little trees and picture tan or brown,” he said when asked what it was like there. “Even the sky looked brown.”
It also was 107 to 109 degrees when he left.
He showed the students a bottle of dirt from Iraq. He said there actually was little sand there, with most being dirt. Leggett was in Iraq for four months, leaving the U.S. on Jan. 2.
“When it gets wet, it is like cement,” he said, explaining that it would get caked on their boots making them weigh 30 or 40 pounds.
“There was no grass in Iraq,” he continued. “Just little sprouts here and there.”
While there, he got to visit some of Saddam’s palaces, which were all made of marble. He showed the kids a piece of marble from one of the palaces.
He told of one palace with a chandalier half the size of their classroom.
Saddam had nine palaces.
“There was enough marble there to build this whole school,” he said.
One palace they visited, which was still under construction, was the Victory of America Palace, which he was building because he thought he could conquer America.
Leggett’s job in Iraq was force protection. His unit watched the contractors and people on the base to make sure they were kept safe. This was his third tour, with the first two being in Kuwait.
His day would start at about 10 a.m. when he would get up. He then worked from noon to midnight. After he got off work he would check e-mail then go to the gym, returning to bed about 2 or 3 a.m.
“We had a gym, movie tent, basketball and ping pong,” he said. “We couldn’t get off base a lot.”
Because of that he didn’t interact much with Iraqis.
While in Iraq, he did hear a lot of gunfire and experienced a couple of mortar attacks.
When asked what was the scariest thing that happened, he explained about one of the mortar attacks.
“I could see the control tower of Baghdad International Airport,” he said.
He heard across the runway people yelling “incoming.”
They ran into a hard place.
“The mortar shook the area I was in,” he said.
The students also asked about the food and water over there.
Leggett said they had hundreds of pallets of bottled water that came from a purification plant in Iraq and their food was shipped in.
The students asked Leggett if he would go back to Iraq again.
“If I had the opportunity, I would,” he said.
He also encouraged anyone interested in the military to join.
“It’s fun, it’s enjoyable,” he said. “You get to go places and meet new people.”
Leggett has been in the military for 25 years now.
When asked what he missed most about home while deployed, he said the smell of fresh air and the colors, as well as the ability to just get in a car and drive wherever he wants.
Leggett also was asked about the troops leaving Iraq.
“If we pulled out it would be like a vacuum,” he said. “It would be chaos. It would defeat all we’ve done so far.”
He also said the Iraqi police force is getting stronger.
