Winchester Captain Visits Pen Pals

Roughly 100 students in the grade 8 Aquarius cluster came to the library to meet their pen pal, Capt. John O’Brien of Winchester, on Wednesday. While serving for 14 months in Afghanistan, O’Brien received monthly packages and letters from the students.

“The hardest part of deployment is being away from family; you miss the touch
of home – that's why I liked your letters,” he told the students. “For the most part, they were upbeat, except for when you wrote about the Patriots losing the Super Bowl!”

Throughout the year, students of social studies teacher Deborah Gigante wrote
to O’Brien with holiday wishes and greetngs from his home state. The packages also included gifts of treats and candy. O’Brien said he left some of the letters out so they could be appreciated by other military personnel.

O’Brien, the father of two preschoolers, shared a lesson on leadership, the U.S. Army, Afghanistan and the Fallen Heroes program.

 Principal Todd Bucey accepted the return of a United States flag from O’Brien. The school’s flag, which flew over the U.S. Capitol three years ago, was with O’Brien in Afghanistan where he arranged to have the flag flown.

“I wanted to say thank you for your support during my deployment, and I hope you’ll continue that for some of the other 100,000 troops now deployed in Afghanistan,” he said.

A from Peabody Patch contributed this piece. This writer submits pieces on behalf of the Higgins Middle School library.