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March 20, 2003
Army officer tries to allay fears of school children
By LINDA TRIMBLE | News-Journal Education Writer
DAYTONA BEACH — Twelve hours after the U.S. launched its first attack against Iraq, Army Maj. Joey Boyles was intent on a different mission as he met with seventh-graders at St. Paul Catholic School on Thursday.
"I knew they had fears," said Boyles, who started corresponding with Michele Medina's social studies pupils last fall, halfway through his seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.
"I wanted to make sure they knew the person they wrote to came back in one piece, I came back a better person and I haven't forgotten them," said Boyles, who returned to his Middleburg home outside Jacksonville in late February.
His reassurances couldn't have come at a better time for 12-year-old Chapman Root II of Ormond Beach. "I've never been through a war before; I didn't know what to expect," Chapman said after hearing Boyles predict a swift and sure U.S. victory in Iraq. "I feel safer."
His classmate, 14-year-old Matt Dunn of Ormond Beach, said he's not worried about the war after spending some time with Boyles. "People like Major Boyles are doing their jobs to protect me," Matt said.
The timing of Boyles' visit was a coincidence. A longtime Harley rider, Boyles' initial plan to stop by the school during Bike Week was washed out by heavy rains.
He spent much of Thursday's visit recounting his experiences in Afghanistan, where he worked with that country's senior defense officials in forming and training the first two brigades of a new national army.
A former Marine who joined the Florida National Guard in 1983, Boyles, 50, voluntarily took a demotion from lieutenant colonel and switched reserve units last year so he could serve in Afghanistan. "I went there because I had a bitterness and hatred for what al-Qaida did to the World Trade Center," he said. "I was going to take care of business."
Boyles said he quickly learned to distinguish between al-Qaida terrorists and the Afghans, whom he found to be "good, hard-working and honest people" who desperately need Americans' help to rebuild their country after 23 years of war.
He encouraged the seventh-graders to remember that as the Iraqi war and other world affairs unfold.
And now that he's home, Boyles said it's important for the St. Paul pupils to remember something else – "you have other soldiers who need your letters."