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VAHS teacher makes headlines in South Carolina researching for his students
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 |
During Spring Break, you might well expect a teacher to take a well-deserved rest -- or just plain collapse for awhile! Instead, Village Academy High School teacher Michael Steinman made his way down south to research the life of a man he thought his students should know more about: Billy Farrow. A USC student until the war started, Farrow was one of the famous Doolittle Raiders of World War II. The Raiders conducted just one mission, but it was a turning point in the war. They struck at the Japanese island of Honshu, bringing the war to Japan for the first time. All 16 planes were lost in the mission, and 11 crewmembers were either killed or captured. One of those captured was Billy Farrow of South Carolina, later executed. During his imprisonment, he wrote heartening letters to his family back home, which is one of the things about him that so intrigued Steinman. "Here's a kid you could take a lesson from," Steinman told the Darlington, South Carolina, newspaper, who found out he was in town. "He wasn't lazy, he was industrious, he didn't feel entitled, he worked really hard. It is a sad story in that in the end he sacrificed in the most horrific way. But what we get out of it is to be thankful for what we have. Enjoy every single day of your life." That's a message Steinman wants to convey to his students -- a message carried across 66 years and thousands and thousands of miles. Here Steinman visits the airfield where Farrow learned to fly. |
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