Local JROTC students get military, life leadership lessons at Infantry Museum

Leaning on a walking stick, retired U.S. Army Maj. Bill Spies, now an 83-year-old farmer in Fort Mitchell, Ala., was speaking to a group of students from Troup County High School at the National Infantry Museum.

The young JROTC students paid attention as Spies talked about dropping out of high school and being drafted into the Army. He was speaking about leadership and life lessons in grandfatherly tone.

“Do you know how important a single horseshoe nail is?” he asked the somewhat bewildered teenagers before getting to the point of his story of how a failed horseshoe nail led to the downfall of a country many centuries ago. “For the want of a horse, a knight was lost; for the want of a knight, a battle was lost; for the want of a battle, a regiment was lost; and for the loss of a regiment, and entire nation was lost. And just think of this, an entire nation was lost for the want of what? One horseshoe nail.”

Spies then asked a simple question to the students, now fully engaged.

“Have you ever seen a person who was not worth a single horseshoe nail?” he asked. “All of you are worth more than a horseshoe nail. ... What I am saying to you is you are important. I don’t care what level you are at; I don’t care who you are, your job is important where ever you go.”

Spies was one of more than 70 active-duty and retired military personnel on Monday talking about leadership and service to more than 750 high school Junior ROTC students from 14 high schools across the Chattahoochee Valley.

The event was sponsored by AT&T and opened with an address from U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany.

But it was old soldiers like Spies who had the students’ attention.

Just five days after retiring, Brig. Gen. Pete Jones was speaking on leadership and told students from Crawford County High School in Roberta, Ga., to pay attention and soak up the lessons they would be taught on Monday.

“You are going to see this old crusty guy over here,” Jones said, pointing toward Spies about 50 yards away. “... You look at Ranger Spies — and you can call him Ranger Spies, all right — and if you were to see him in Publix or someplace else, he would look like anybody’s grandpa.”

Pay attention to what Spies says, Jones told the students.

“He’s an old farmer from Alabama,” Jones said. “Do you realize he’s a Ranger Hall of Famer? He’s a Vietnam veteran. But you know what he cares about most when he looks at you?”

One student responded, “The future.”

Jones shot back, “Future what? Future leaders. And that’s what we care about you guys and gals today.”

Spies was in his element.

“Do you know what I miss most about the Army?” he responded when asked about the event. “I miss the young people. And I enjoy being around young people. When things get done in the Army, you know who does it? Privates. You know who tells them to do it? Sergeants? And you know who makes sure they do it right? Sergeants. These kids need to see what right looks like.”

Tiffany Hoffman, the assistant director of education for the National Infantry Museum Foundation, was one of the organizers who pulled together the event when AT&T presented the museum with $35,000 as part of a $500,000 effort to honor veterans across the nation this week.

That money allowed the museum to bring in schools, pay for the bus transportation, lunch and offer an unique learning experience, Hoffman said.

“A lot of these schools don’t have the extracurricular activities or budgets to put these kinds of programs together,” Hoffman said. “With a program like this, we can start to give some of these students focus.”

One of the students is Shelby Fugate, a sophomore at Chattahoochee County High School. She was learning how to use a tourniquet from Sgt. Angela Kim, assigned to Fort Benning.

“I really want to become a field medic and she’s helping me learn how to reach that goal,” Fugate said. “It helps me if I have questions, there’s someone I can go ask.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2017 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Local JROTC students get military, life leadership lessons at Infantry Museum."