American Honor

The WayneWho staff would like to salute Osceola County School Board member Julius Melendez who will spend most of next year overseas because he will be deployed by the U.S. Army National Guard to the Middle East. He will be serving an ever growing responsibility that America's service members have been asked to fulfill, and we would like to offer our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to not only Mr. Melendez, but to all of America's service members.

The WayneWho staff has noticed a strong push in local publications to clarify that Mr. Melendez will be able to continue to 'serve' his constituents and 'serve' in his role as a school board member. We have to wonder what kind of person or group would suggest otherwise. We have caught some of the cross traffic of those who are angling for their shot at School Board super-stardom and we can say we are stunned at the lack of support by a select few for a U.S. service member. We are glad to hear that Mr. Melendez plans on continuing to be part of the meetings using technology, and we would encourage his continued participation even though we do not feel this is a demand that is warranted. While the great men and women of our nation answer the call of duty in a foreign land, it is our job to make sure things stay straight back here at home. If the rest of the school board can not handle the job while Mr. Melendez answers the call of our nation, then we need work on replacing them, not the other way around. As we have stated, we would like to encourage Mr. Melendez's participation not only because we would feel honored to have it, but because we think that his perspective on many of the petty issues that are created by, or come before the School Board, will be of great value. Nothing brings clarity of how incredible it is to be a United States Citizen than being thrown into the war-torn areas of middle east.

While we do not fault any of the news coverage from our local media about how Mr. Melendez is going to continue to serve as a School Board Member during his deployment, we wish the tone of the stories would have been different. Call us old-school, but we feel the articles should have been focused on what our community is going to do to support Mr. Melendez and his family during his deployment. Instead of School Board members just being "willing to work with Melendez’s schedule, as long as he would be allowed by his superiors to participate in School Board meetings," and the members offering "hope that they (the United States Military) does everything they can to accommodate us (the Osceola County School Board)," we would have hoped that story would have been focused on the support the other School Board Members have for our service men and women and their families. Maybe the School Board should get behind an effort to send care packages to not only Mr. Melendez, but to all of Osceola County's service members serving in a combat theater. Maybe School Board Member Wheeler could use his weekly updates for more than stories of police officers breaking the rules based on what political candidate a speeder supports, or stories about how the 'updates' themselves have saved the school board from self-destruction, and it could be used to spread the word on what our local service members and their families might need. If nothing else maybe we could use this as a teaching moment to help our children understand the price of freedom and then have them organize a letter drive to make sure that all of our local servicemen and women abroad feel the warmth and support of home. The WayneWho staff feels that we can do better than being upset if we don't get enough teleconferencing time.

Let's not forget those that serve. We can do better.

(Today's Picture is of Iraq War Veteran Brian Fontaine who was severely wounded serving our country.)