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Pete Hegseth is an alumnus of the Forest Lake Area High School and the founder of Vets for Freedom, wh

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But the principal abrupty cancelled the event when “parents and others” called the school and objected. The Star Tribune story reporting the cancellation is ambiguously headlined and written to suggest that the scheduled event raised concerns that the event was political in nature, but it is evident that the “concerns” about politics were confined to accusations by the objectors and that the principal simply kowtowed to them. What a disgrace.

Politics in School? Imagine that - An Inconvenient Truth if ever there was one.

Gee, I guess they’ll have to cancel Earth Day, too.

Maybe if Pete promised those parents and the ever available “others” one free spit, the event could have been deemed non political?

Spinelessness.

Same group that prevents vets oks teaching 5 year olds about sexuality? Excuse me - what about those parents who complain about that? Oh, they don’t have the right - the education establishiment knows better.

What kind of message does this restriction of speech send to these kids? Oh, if you are anti-American, anti-military, anti-free speech, anti-Constitution you can come speak but if you are pro any of the above, hey, you’re too controversial.

What a disgusting, cowardly display of “education” leaders today - what a bunch of wimps.

Should we all chip in and buy the Principal a backbone?

Contrast this pant-wetting, hand-wringing, panty-bunching response to that of a top notch High School in “The Villages” Florida. They have gone out of their way to not only honor veterans, but also to actually include them in “teaching” the kids about what it is/was like to serve one’s country.

“Adopt a Vet”, essay competition, attending graveside honors at the Bushnell National Memorial Cemetery.  What a concept!  Moreover, the graduates consistently out-perform, by miles, national averages and Florida averages for academic excellence.

Where would you rather your children be educated and influenced.

Go figure.

This whole business reminds me a lot of the lawsuit against the Forest Lake school district when they banned “The Lottery,” a controversial film based on a Shirley Jackson story in which a town picks someone once a year to be stoned to death.  The court (our old friend Miles W. Lord) held that the district’s action to ban the film could not be upheld because they did so for religious and ideological, rather than curricular, reasons.  Lord’s decision was upheld by the 8th circuit.  Pratt v. Independent School District No. 831, Forest Lake, 670 F.2d 771, 777 (8th Cir. 1982).

Students skip school to see Iraq speech

A veteran’s bus tour featuring decorated veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is stopping in the Twin Cities today.
But controversy at Forest Lake High School forced the tour to make a change in plans.
Capt. Pete Hegeseth founded the group Vets for Freedom. He is an Iraq War vet and a Forest Lake High School graduate. He received word yesterday that the school did not want the bus rolling through, calling the talk too political for a public school.

He said parents and an outside group threatened to protest if they came.
Instead, the group spoke at the Forest Lake American Legion.

Dozens of students at Forest Lake High School were so upset that they skipped school to go see the speech.

“My brother’s in the armed forces...it’s a slap in the face for people with family members in the armed forces,” said student Elijah Miller.
The non-profit, non-partisan group does talk about staying in Iraq, but Hegeseth said the current speech has been adjusted for public school students. He said it’s about sharing experience.
“I was out there for three days outside the neighborhood outside the green zone and I didn’t hear a single shot fired or a single explosion,” Heggeseth told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. “Markets were open, the Iraqi Army was out on the street corner--that’s not political, that’s what I saw first hand,” Hegeseth told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS.

School officials repeatedly denied our requests for comment on the situation.

The patriotic students skipped their classes and went to the Legion to entertain their honored guests. Those students who went to their classes got to watch An Inconvenient Truth, again.

postBot - 25 March 2008 01:24 PM

Pete Hegseth is an alumnus of the Forest Lake Area High School and the founder of Vets for Freedom, wh

» View the article

Wow, I’m often in disagreement with most on this board and yet I fully support this organization and their efforts. I really see nothing about this org that screams blind partisanship or anything overtly political.

Just WOW

One moron of a Principal.

The patriotic students skipped their classes and went to the Legion to entertain their honored guests.

Meanwhile, school officials are cowering in the cor, er, not commenting.  Think these walking advertisments for home schooling are stupid enough to give out detentions to these students?

Sounds like the Code Pink wackos from Berkeley have moved to Minnesota. God bless those 200 students and parents who came out to hear the Vets for Freedom anyway.

In September of 2005, a social studies schoolteacher from Arkansas did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal, and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom. The kids came into first period, they walked in; there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, “Where’s our desks?”

The teacher said, “You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn them.”

They thought, “Well, maybe it’s our grades.”

“No,” she said.

“Maybe it’s our behavior.”

And she told them, “No, it’s not even your behavior.”

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in the class to find out about this
crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, the instructor gathered her class.

They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said, “Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily. Now I’m going to tell
you.”

She went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Their teacher said, “You don’t have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it’s up to you to sit here responsibly, to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don’t ever forget it.”

--- From former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee’s 2 March 2007 address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. It recounts events from the first day of classes in Fall 2005 for students enrolled in Martha Cothren’s military history class at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Yoda, I never heard that story before, so thanks for posting it.  It should be made into a poster and sent to every danged teacher in this country.

And though I didn’t vote for Gov. Huckabee, I’m glad to hear he recounted the story.

/Mr Lynn

PS Power Line guys: I suggest you put Yoda’s post on the top of Power Line, and then send it to that principal.

Just wanted to add that I think Power Line is an excellent site and carries great articles.  BUT, I wish it had an opening page with a menu for stories.  It would make your readers’ lives a whole lot easier not to have to keep scrolling down to see what’s there and to be able to access stories more quickly to read and post comments.  Just a thought.