When I began my teaching career many years ago, I never imaged that technology tools would come so far. The best technology we had, ??in college, were Apple IIes with floppy discs. Technology has come a long way! Today, we had a video chat with an Air Force Staff Sargeant in Afghanistan.??
To prepare my students, we used Google Earth to 'fly' to Afghanistan. We zoomed in and looked at many of the buildings. We noticed many buildings under construction. We also saw a Mosque. I also found a website that showed a side by side comparison of our city to Kabul. We looked at the city size and the distance it is from us. We would be Skyping over 7,000 miles away.??
The serviceman who kindly agreed to Skype with us was a family friend of one of my students. He was so generous to take time out of his day to Skype with us. We had earlier tried to connect with him twice, but he was called back into work. The time difference between our town and his is 9 hours.??
We had many questions, but we limited them to just a few. We wanted to know about the weather. He told us that it was 80 and dusty. He also said that it will be in the 100s next month.
We wanted to know about his uniform and if he had to carry a gun. He told us his uniform was brown and yes, he carries a gun when he's on duty.??
We asked him about his food and where he lives. He said that he eats the same foods that he ate back at home. But that some days they have foods like the foods of Afghanistan. He said he lives in an air conditioned trailer with several other servicemen.??
We knew that he was a language specialist for the Air Force so we were curious to know how many languages he spoke. He knows 5 and he said that he had 18 months of special training for this current job.??
To close out our call, I thanked him for his time and asked him if he had any final messages for us. He said he was glad to see that we are remembering the servicemen who are serving our country and to remember that servicemen are leaving behind loved ones, and especially children, while they are serving. I told him we were going to send him cards from us and asked if there was something he misses that he can't get in Afghanistan, that would be gummy bears!??
After we hung up, we all paused to pray for his safety. We prayed a Hail Mary.??
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