Posted on 06/10/2010 8:05:37 PM PDT by SandRat
BAGHDAD - As her daughter’s name was about to be called, Sgt. 1st Class Esther Elliott nervously watched for her on the two 78-inch monitors in Camp Victory’s Al Faw Palace here.
Sgt. 1st Class Esther Elliott, an intelligence planner with Army III Corps, celebrates from Camp Victory’s Al Faw Palace as her daughter, Elizabeth White, walks across the stage to receive her high school diploma in Texas, June 5, 2010. Thanks to a partnership between Fort Hood and the area high schools, deployed parents are able to watch their children graduate live via a video telecast of the event. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Britney Bodner.
Physically, she was about 7,300 miles away. Emotionally, she was in the front row.
Wringing her hands, she slowly inched forward with each passing moment.
When the name Elizabeth White was announced and she moved across the stage to receive her high school diploma, a smile exploded onto Elliott’s face, her eyes filled with tears of joy as she clapped and waved at the screen.
“I wanted to jump out of my seat,” said Elliott. “In my mind I was saying ‘hurry up and walk across the stage so I can see you.’ It was a great, great moment. I was sitting on the edge of my seat. I just kind of scooted up to the edge just waiting for her to come out. I almost fell off. I knew it would be exciting and I’d be happy to see her, but I didn’t’ think I would have all those emotions run through me at once.”
Deployed for a one-year tour with the III Corps Special Troops Battalion, Elliott knew she was not going to be able to attend the graduation in person, but was comforted by the fact that she wasn’t going to miss it either.
“It’s really special. For that one split second you actually forget where you are,” she said. “For me, it was like I was there. I was so into it that I tuned everyone out. It felt like I was there.”
Thanks to “Gradcast,” a joint venture between the Killen Independent School District and Fort Hood, Texas, Soldiers and DA civilians who are deployed or training away from the area, Soldiers are able to watch graduation ceremonies live via video teleconference.
Sgt. 1st Class Esther Elliott, an intelligence planner with Army III Corps, talks with her family via video teleconference from Al Faw Palace on Camp Victory, Iraq, June 5, 2010. Elliot had the opportunity to speak with her daughter, Elizabeth White, and family back home in Texas and watch her daughter’s high school graduation ceremony live. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Britney Bodner."
When the student’s name is called and he or she walks the stage, the deployed parent is broadcast live back to the ceremony both on a large screen for friends and family to see, as well as a monitor on stage so the graduate can also see their parent.
Elliott said the fact that the school district and Fort Hood community cares enough to make the extra effort for deployed Soldiers means a lot.
“It’s a huge, huge deal to me,” she said. “It’s really important to think that someone actually cared enough to do something like this for us. It means more to us than anything.”
For military families, the graduation ceremony tends to be a little more emotional because the journey their children take to reach that stage is often far different than that of their peers.
Elliott said her daughter has been to several different schools and has moved about eight times during her life. Each move brings with it transition; adjusting to new friends, a new educational system, a new life. However, like other military children, she believes it also made her daughter more well-rounded.
“I think it made her a stronger person,” Elliott said. “It made her more outgoing. It made her more independent than she would have been if we would have stayed in the same place.”
Now, as her daughter prepares to head off to Prairie View College in Houston, her mom says she’s proud, but also struggles with the fact that her child is now a young adult ready to move out into the world.
“I’m starting to learn and keep telling myself that I have to let her go, that she’ll be fine,” Elliott said. “That is the hardest thing, to watch them grow from something really little to the mature adults that they are. Then they go to college and you just pray that they remember all the stuff that you taught them.”
With the ceremony complete, Elliott left the conference room with a new memory of her daughter, the high school graduate. She may have been thousands of miles away, but she was a part of it, and those few seconds when she saw her daughter walk the stage are priceless.
“That couple of seconds meant so much to me,” Elliott said. “It’s going to be a couple of seconds that I’m going to remember for a long time.”
That is wonderful.
Excellent use of technology! It’s nice to know that SOMEBODY out there is using their head.
and Heart.
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