By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
The Raton Middle School honors veterans each Veteran’s Day with a breakfast and assembly in the gym and this year was no exception as students and faculty listened to guest speaker Judge Warren Walton, Captain, U.S. Army Retired.
Walton, as the some 220 students at RMS, was a student at RMS and graduated from Raton High. Walton rose to the rank of captain and commanded a high altitude rescue team while in Alaska. Walton spoke of the freedoms that we as Americans enjoy today because of the veterans who protected those rights. Even the right to protest against our own government without retribution.
He said we all have a duty to serve our country and spoke about his middle school teacher Jennifer Heider who spoke of her brother who served in Vietnam. He told the story of how a soldier who saved Heider’s brother by jumping on a grenade that was thrown into a small group of men waiting to be evaced out after being wounded. He went on to speak of the sacrifices that not only a soldier deals with but the family of that soldier.
He encouraged the students to honor the sacrifices of the veterans who have given them the freedom to be students.