Moss Bluff Middle School served up coffee, biscuits and a hearty celebratory tribute this week that left no doubt that students, teachers, faculty and administration revere veterans — and they put in the work to put on a program to prove it.

School Principal Angela M. Guillory said she couldn’t think of a group more deserving of the attention.  “We’re here to honor them because without them we wouldn’t enjoy the freedom to assemble,” she said. “The program is not only a way to honor veterans,” she said, it’s also a learning experience for students.”

Through band performances, a color guard march, creative arts skits and song students learned that Veterans Day is more than a day off from school and referred to veterans as a “precious gift,” MBMS students explained the significance of America’s White Table, a demonstration that even those who gave their lives “are not forgotten so long as there is one left in whom your memory remains.”

Pam Hoffpauir, responsible for getting out the student-designed invitations, said that the event has grown and significantly since last year, when 90 veterans and their families attended. This year the number was 130. Students are given the opportunity to invite a veteran, serve as part of the hospitality crew, play in the band, create artwork or perform in skits.

This is the second year that Kale Landy has invited his Godfather, Johan Aldridge, retired Air Force, New Iberia. Landry enjoys hearing Aldridge talk about the places he’s been stationed, Okinawa, England, Japan and Iceland. Joe Carmody, Moss Bluff served for fifteen years. He said he signed up to keep himself out of trouble and he was there as a guest of his son, Jaden who admitted he wished his father would have been home. “Hadley Berry invited Natalie Trahan, a relative from the Pineville 225 National Guard and her great grandfather David Kelley who served 11 years in the military and two in active duty. Kelley said he agreed with a veteran who suggested military duty should be compulsory after high school. He said learning about organization and taking orders probably changed his life.