Long Island students honor vets with portraits, and an ear to listen

At the Long Island Children's Museum on Wednesday, military veterans came face to face with their portraits and the student artists behind the works.

Meanwhile at Glen Cove High School on Wednesday, students came face to face with the sacrifice of veterans, learning the toll the battlefield can take on a person.

Ahead of Veterans Day on Saturday, the students at both events got an early start on honoring and paying tribute to service members and learning more about the people charged with protecting a nation.

At the high school, veterans spoke with the students, giving advice and sharing stories of life in a uniform that could sometimes make them feel alone and often unappreciated. But not Wednesday.

Philip Dilgard-Clark, 17, a senior at the high school, said "the ability to … see that they are here, see that they are from our community, see that they are still engaged with our community, I think that’s important. It’s like a source of inspiration close to home.”

Glen Cove resident Howard Stillwagon, 75, who served in the Army during the Vietnam War, was one of the veterans who told the students his story and offered words of wisdom. In an interview afterward, Stillwagon, his service dog by his side, said he described to the students how sleep in the jungles of Vietnam was a rare luxury. How even after coming home, with memories of the war still fresh, he couldn't sleep.

Decades later, Stillwagon said he's at peace and appreciative of how the students took an interest.

“It’s important for us, you know, because when we came home,” he said, “we were ignored.”

Inside the children's museum in Uniondale, eighth-grade artists from Notre Dame Catholic School in New Hyde Park displayed portraits of about a dozen veterans the students painted after hearing the service members' recollections of their time in the military.

Called the Veteran’s Portrait Project, it was started at the school by Assemb. Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square) and based on former President George W. Bush’s paintings in his book, “Portraits of Courage.” Groups of students were assigned a veteran and then each painted a portrait of the service member.

"My grandfather was a veteran near Pearl Harbor and I think of the story he told me that day," Ra said of the Pearl Harbor attack. "It's so important to write down these stories for future generations to learn from them."

Amelia Pietruszka, 13, said she was drawn to Rosie Marie Christopher, 72, of Hempstead, the only woman in the project, and a nine-year veteran of the Army National Guard from 1976 to 1984.

"I was very inspired to read about all the challenges and obstacles she overcame and all of the opportunities she was given," Pietruszka said.

Christopher said she was stationed at the armory in Hempstead during the Lebanon war in 1982. She said her father dissuaded her from joining the military until she was 26, but she told students to follow their dreams.

After speaking with the veterans and doing the watercolor portraits, the students each wrote an essay about their assigned service member. Christopher stood in the community gallery and admired four of the watercolor paintings of her portrait.

"They're all so different. But of course, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I appreciate them all," she said. "I really think they were very on point with what I had told them and didn't miss a beat."

Eric Spinner, 80, of New Hyde Park, served in the National Guard from 1965 to 1971.

He has worked with different students in the portrait project over the past four years.

"I'm not a solo act here. I'm here with my brothers and sisters who posed for these pictures," he said. "The kids are amazing. They learned about veterans, they learned about history. They learned about what we did and didn't. And they're able to move forward as educated young adults."