CA Katelan King Wins Veterans Essay Contest

By JAKE LOWARY • The Leaf-Chronicle • November 12, 2009

The Downtown Kiwanis Club took a more academic approach this year to its Interview a Veteran Essay Contest, encouraging local students to compare prior military eras to the current one.

At Tuesday’s regular club meeting, contest winners were announced and some of the tales from their interviewees drew standing ovations from club members.

“I truly think the veterans and students will remember this for a long time,” said Debbie McGaha Bratton, one of the project organizers and member of the club’s Memories of Service and Sacrifice Committee.

Katelan King took the grand winner title in the high school division and Taylor Gamble, a student at Mahaffey Middle School at Fort Campbell, won the middle school division.

Katelan’s essay on the service of Don Simpson, who was drafted into the military in the early 1970s, focused on the difference in communication with families and the influence of the media.

Like many other Vietnam veterans, Simpson was welcomed home with animosity and anger. Katelan wrote of the biggest difference Simpson has noticed in the passing of ages.

“The most important difference in today’s army is the support for the military,” Katelan said Tuesday.

Other tales of heroism and sacrifice were shared, like that of James Krantz. Richview Middle School’s Savannah Tracey interviewed Krantz, the only American to be treated for frostbite in the South Pacific during World War II.

Krantz was in an airplane and fell out into minus-9 degree air, held only by a harness he created himself, and which later became standard issue in the military.

“I do believe that was a miracle,” Bratton said.

Club members gave Krantz a standing ovation after Savannah read the passage from her essay, which earned the Best Survival award.

Taylor interviewed her father, Capt. Jeffrey Gamble, who said transportation in combat has changed dramatically and has affected the way soldiers fight.

“My father thinks soldiers can focus more on fighting more than getting from here to there,” she said.

Richview Middle and Northwest High School both took the award for most participation in each division.

Taylor also wrote that her father thinks 15-month deployments are “entirely too long,” and doesn’t know how families in earlier eras, when soldiers could be gone for several years at a time, withstood the time apart.

Committee chairman Ron Smithfield said this year’s contest had an added focus on the students’ writing skills.

“They had to do a little analysis and comparison,” he said.

Bratton, who was a judge, said the quality of essays was remarkable across the board.

“I can’t say how pleased we are with the essays this year,” she said.

School winners each received gift cards and a plaque. Katelan and Taylor also received an American flag flown atop of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Jake Lowary covers military affairs. He can be reached at 245-0719 or by e-mail at jakelowary@theleafchronicle.com.