Twelve people commented on the veterans’ exemption at the school board’s Dec. 1 work session — the nine members of the board and three people from the audience.
Of the 12, John Hussey was the only one offering an opinion for the first time. He had missed the previous meetings, because he was in Afghanistan.
When it was time for public input, Col. Hussey moved up to the first row in the Lee Road School cafetorium and sat down. Wearing civilian clothes, he addressed the board politely, and not as an adversary. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” he said on several occasions, “but you have to understand what’s going on.”
Col. Hussey implied that the percentage of veterans will be going down. Only 1 percent of the population is in the military now, he said, and only half of them are in combat areas. The question is no longer “Have you been here [in Afghanistan] before?” he said. People now ask, “How many deployments have you been on?”
Colonel Hussey raised a different question later in his remarks. “When are the others going to make sacrifices?” he wanted to know.
During the board discussion, Tirek Gayle had suggested that policemen and firemen might also deserve some dispensation.
The colonel didn’t exactly disagree. “I know cops get shot at,” he admitted. “But every day on the road in Afghanistan, I was saying an ‘Our Father’ that we didn’t hit an IED.”
Diana McNally, the school board vice president, had hoped that vets could benefit from other perks. The colonel thought it was unlikely. He said the PX prices are no better than what you find at Walmart and not many facilities are open to veterans. He was recently turned away when he tried to use the gym at Stewart.
Unlike Col. Hussey, Nancy Bryan had been in the audience for almost all of the exemption discussions. “I’m beyond upset that you turned this down,” she said.
Richard Randazzo reminded the board that he had faced a similar decision 30 years ago when he was Town Supervisor. Now he read a list of nine school districts that he believed had granted the exemption. (He confirmed the accuracy of the list the next day.) “What makes us unique,” he asked, “that the board had to struggle so hard?”
