On Wednesday, November 8th, RB honored the men and women of the armed forces.

A school wide assembly took place in which veterans from many different wars were honored for their bravery. Students were also given the opportunity to listen to personal accounts of veterans’ war experiences in break out sessions.

The assembly followed the successful model of previous veteran’s day assemblies. This year, the flag that was flown in the assembly was a flag that was flown by the regular and reserve army out of North Riverside at their base in Iraq in 2008.

Ten years ago former social studies department chair William Jirkovski decided that having students take Veterans Day off as a holiday was not the correct way to honor the brave men and women who have served in the armed forces and have made freedom possible for Americans.

RB administration petitioned the state of Illinois to allow them to have school on Veterans Day in order to have an assembly in which veterans are honored. Many schools have followed what RB has done, and Veterans Day is now becoming a day for students to honor veterans instead of just another day to sleep in.

“It’s our hope that our students understand the debt that we owe to veterans because our freedom is not free,” said Jirkovski.

During the assembly Jirkovski was given a plaque by the school board to honor him for organizing the event for the past 10 years.

Over the past few years the amount of WWII veterans who attend the event has gone down. The overall number of veterans who come to be honored has increased as those who served in the Gulf War and the current war on terror are now joining veterans of previous conflicts.

There will always be veterans to honor and RB is committed to making sure that they are given the respect and recognition that they so greatly deserve.