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Articles

Living history -- Union Gap students dress as soldiers
By ERIN SNELGROVE
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC  10 November 2007

UNION GAP -- Rather than giving his students a reading assignment or corralling them into an assembly, Bryan Dibble decided on another way to teach them about Veterans Day.

He began by unpacking his garage.

"It's like I'm a kid playing Army," grinned Dibble, a Union Gap School social studies teacher dressed in Army fatigues. "You've got to show it, or don't even bother."

An admitted World War II fanatic, Dibble has amassed an impressive collection of military memorabilia over the years. He owns Army uniforms from World War I to the 1980s. He has rifles, boxes of military-style food rations, canteens and ammunition.

He even has a tent.

For the past six years, the social studies teacher has displayed these and other items at the school during an interactive lesson honoring Veterans Day. He continued the tradition Thursday, when about 650 students from kindergarten through eighth grade viewed the encampment and listened to presentations from Dibble, a Civil War re-enactor and an active-duty Army lieutenant.

"It's almost like a time portal," 12-year-old Ricky Borges said about the encampment. "You get to go back and live what they lived. It's really cool."

Union Gap School was one of many Yakima Valley schools that honored Veterans Day this week. In Yakima, bagpipe performances, poetry readings and guest speakers were featured on campuses throughout the city.

Sunnyside High School aired a student-made video on its school-wide television network, which included interviews with recruiters and scripts read at veterans' memorials. And at Artz Fox Elementary in Mabton, students took veterans with them to class for a day.

The school always hosts a Veterans Day assembly, but music teacher Jen Schlegel said she wanted to make it more personal this year because of the Iraq war.

The school used a list of names provided by the local VFW to make a star for every single veteran -- alive or dead -- from the Mabton area. There are more than 200 hanging in the gymnasium.

"I think it's important for our students to see just how many veterans there are from our tiny town," Schlegel said.

For Dibble, anything done to teach students the significance of Veterans Day is a good thing.

"In time of war, you do what you have to do," he said. "We need to teach everyone that soldiers in uniform are doing just that. Some are happy about it, some are devastated about it. If you can't honor anything else, that is something right there."

His goal this year was to get the students' attention by establishing a war timeline. At one end of the outdoor encampment, retired Grandview High School teacher Larry Graham dressed in a Civil War uniform and talked about the only war in which two armies of Americans battled each other on U.S. soil. By the time it ended in 1865, 630,000 men had been killed.

More interesting to the students, though, were Graham's props.

"The kids are really fascinated with the guns," he said. "You can get them with the gun, even without pulling the trigger."

The next display featured Dibble's collection of memorabilia. He even had several students dress in uniforms to represent soldiers during World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and the Korean War.

And last in line was Lt. James Jack of Fort Lewis in Pierce County, who served in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War and again from 2004 to 2005. Throughout the day, he helped students put on gas masks, Army vests and backpacks.

He also answered their questions about the Army, such as why male soldiers all have the same haircut and what soldiers do if they're shot.

Sharing his time with the students is a gift, Jack said.

If anything, he hopes they remember that soldiers are regular people and that Veterans Day is more than a day off from school.

"I want them to pause," he said about the Nov. 12 federal holiday. "This is about the sacrifices people give."

* Yakima Herald-Republic reporter Ross Courtney contributed to this report.

* Erin Snelgrove can be reached at 577-7684 or esnelgrove@yakimaherald.com.

Standing in their heroes' shoes
Published On: November 10, 2005
BY James Joyce III   
Page:
Section: Main/Home Front

By JAMES JOYCE III YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Bryan Dibble asked groups of students at Selah Junior High School to look past the fighting in war and think about the sacrifice veterans have made in conflicts past and present.

Sacrifices like the agony of sitting in a hole dug in cold foreign soil, being away from family and not being able even to leave the trenches to relieve bodily functions for fear of being killed.

Clad in the full garb of a soldier from World War II, Dibble, a middle-school history teacher in Union Gap, and Chad Quigley, an assistant principal at Selah Junior High, combined textbook knowledge with stories passed down from veterans to help give students an appreciation for veterans.

"You can talk about it till the cows come home, but when you see it, it's much more relative," said Doug Mantey, a substitute teacher in Selah who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and retired from the Air Force.

Dibble and Quigley collect military memorabilia and are World War II re-enactors. In addition to sharing some of the minute details of war that are often absent from history books, they also had information boards set up inside a World War II squad tent featuring the history of major American conflicts in chronological order, leading to the current war on terrorism.

A Lesson in Foxholes -- Union Gap Middle School teacher Bryan Dibble leads his platoon of students into World War II history with practical application
PUBLISHED ON December 21, 2002
Yakima Herald-Republic (WA)
Page: 1A-2

Union Gap Middle School history teacher Bryan Dibble, dressed as a member of the WWII-era 101st Airborne Infantry, walks past students lined up for instructions before getting to dig foxholes in the frozen earth.
PUBLISHED ON December 21, 2002
Yakima Herald-Republic (WA)
Page: 1A-2

WWII Christmas Play, 8 December 2007

What a great play to watch on the day after the 66th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  Poignant message to help us all remember what Christmas means.  Produced by the West Side Baptist Church in Yakima, Washington.  Complete with a USO canteen an great costumes of the 1940.  We couldn't help going dressed up even if we weren't in the play!

WWII Airborne Demonstration Team Photos- July 2008

More... Including the ADT study guide...  

World War II ADT Photos, July 2007

School Presentations 

G.I. Joe Birthday parties!

  From time to time, I put the uniform collection to proper use and hire out to be the entertainment at birthday parties or promotional functions!  The best fun a guy could have!  Oh, to be a kid again... 

If you live within 100 miles of central Washington State, I could come to your event in one of a number of WWII uniforms and lead the guests through games and activities.  I can also appear at veteran's functions, reunions, and WWII movie or book openings!  Call or email for details.  Email your address and I can send you a brochure. 

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