I think the real issue is that the principal acted stupidly here and deserves a LOT of heat for doing so.
We thank you for your husband’s service and for your support of him. I am sorry if I misunderstood that your comments which were addressed to me were actually meant for someone else.
I mentioned the volunteer work that we do to indicate where we are coming from, not to try and get some type of praise or admiration from you or anyone else here. Recognition from high command is not given to people who have made only casual commitments to the type of work that we do. Your dismissive comments, “(rolling eyes)”, “la-ti-da” and trying to somehow make us feel bad, indicates to us only the type of person that you seem to be inside. We are the type of people who spend a major part of our time getting out and doing for others. I don’t really consider that something that should be made fun of; even if we do have disagreements here.