Earn It

EARN IT

This is such a powerful story and a fantastic way to make the point. It was sent to me by a good friend who is a retired Air Force Colonel.

This teacher had a pretty good idea....

On the first day of school, 2005, Martha Cothren, a social studies teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something quite phenomenal. With the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all the desks from the classroom.

The students walked into their first period, looked around and said, "Ms. Cothren, where's our desk?"

She replied, "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."

The same thing happened during second, third and fourth periods. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms.Cothren's class to investigate this crazy teacher who had removed all the desks from her classroom.

The last period of the day, Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were sitting on the floor. She said, "Throughout the day no one has understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom." She said, "Now I'm going to tell you."

Martha Cothren opened the classroom door and 27 U.S. veterans, in uniform, entered the classroom, each one carrying a school desk. They placed the desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they finished, the students understood, for the first time in their lives perhaps, how they earned those desks.

Martha said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. Now, it's up to you to sit here and learn, to behave responsibly, and become good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk; don't ever forget it."

I think sometimes we forget that our freedom comes - not from celebrities - but from ordinary people who did extraordinary things; who loved this country more than life itself, and who not only earned a school desk for a kid at the Robinson High School in Little Rock, but who earned a seat for you and me to enjoy this great land we call home.

"We live in the Land of the Free because of the brave"

Remember our Troops...

Thanks, Chuck.

God Bless you.

God Bless our Troops.

God Bless the BSA.

God Bless the U.S.A. (the greatest country in the history of the world)

Patriot Mark