“While at camp answering the questions for the kids is very important to us. When you see that spark of interest, and I think I’m speaking for everyone here. It probably reminds us of ourselves when we were younger, regardless of what the interest is. I know that in 2019, one of the days I was officer of the day, and I was in one of our GP medium tents, a family came in. And I believe the parents, either one or both, were history teachers. The boy was really polite. And actually, that goes to something as well. When you have that kid who’s really polite, then you can tell how that child is being raised. And the opposite is true. If you have a child who comes in and is Grabby, Grabby and touching artifacts that aren’t theirs, you kind of get a sense of how they’re raised. But the family came in, and he was really polite. And that’s the kid you throw everything at, seriously. I mean, just that that’s the kid that kind of stands out. He had an interest in paratroopers and paratrooper gear I said, wait here. I ran back to my personal tent, and started opening up foot lockers and grabbing all the paratrooper gear I could and went back to the command tent. And we started throwing everything at and on this kid. The parachute, the reserve chute, the Mae West, the helmet, I mean, you name it and you want to keep going, we’re putting a helmet on him you want to get this is all the gear that they are and there’s more! His parents were snapping pictures, and he asked questions and if we can formulate a love of history, we’re doing it for the generations before us. And hopefully we actually have the kids and sparked the interest so that they can have an interest in doing something along the lines that we’re doing for the generation before them. Probably guys my age if they were in service, etc, or even younger. And yeah, so the kids, whenever the kids come by, they’re one of the main reasons I think why a lot of the guys and gals do it is because as teachers and as stewards of the history. I think that’s what really excites us the most is seeing those kids that have the interest.” -Steven “Zippy” Zahareas.
