Today marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a war most students learn about in school.

But for some, Frederick Douglas High School students in Lexington, the lesson went beyond the text book.

When a group of Vietnam veterans visited their school and shared their war stories.

I have long thought about how can I teach Vietnam in a meaningful way, especially now that most of these particular generation, this particular generation of kids, their grandparents might have served or, you know, like great uncles, that sort of thing.

I really wanted to bring in as many veterans as possible.

So that way they could hear from real people that were there and that served.

We gave Vietnam something they didn't have, but we got them from South Vietnam.

We gave them freedom.

Well, I think in this day and time, they have no knowledge of the Vietnam War, all except for maybe what they hear or read a little bit about it.

I think the television and movies sometimes wrongly depict what a veteran goes through.

What I was telling them is some of the things that I went through.

I've got three purple Hearts at home.

I think it's very important that they know what really went on and talked to the people as myself, who were firsthand experience over there and that environment, let them really know what it's like reading things in books or magazines, etc.. A little bit different, but actually talking to someone that actually lived life a little.

I had a lot of veterans that want to come, but I think that they were nervous about the types of questions that they were going to get asked.

I told the kids, if they're willing to talk about those things and share those things with you all, that's fine.

But if they don't want to, then for, you know, we can talk about other things.

This is the first experience with the high school and I really enjoyed it.

The questions were great.

I responded to every one of the questions.

What are your feelings on people that, dodged the draft?

They don't do anything.

Gosh, you know, I was very honest with them.

I think that's the way that we should operate.

Be honest.

I wanted them to express their feelings about how they felt about it.

And the questions that they ask and be, is, that I could affirm just as truthfully as I could or you know, that.

So they'll have an understanding of it.

I think that it can be healing in a lot of ways for them.

I think, you know, just getting to share their story and get that out in the open.

It actually helps the veterans.

That's therapy for the veterans, especially the Vietnam ones.

It gave us a chance to really open up about what we experienced, what we saw, what we did.

Because believe it or not, a lot of us won't even talk about the Vietnam experience.

And so this is a chance to, I guess, more say not necessarily vet, but who explain what the life was really like being in that environment.

This didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Especially I had my daughter with me.

Who is it supports me 100% and she had photographs in a what I call the Vietnam Book of Photos and so forth.

That really, tells the story.

And the students love that.

So Foxtrot one, where did that come from?

That's just the name, obviously.

Foxtrot.

When you're a kid, you don't there's things that you don't necessarily care about or you know that you don't care to hear at the time.

But as you get older, you know, things, you know your value systems and your morals.

And like, man, I wish I had really learned about that.

And we have people that lived it and they can hear from them.

And so I think some of them, you know, they may they may be doing it because it's just a project for Michelle's class.

But I think the benefit for the kids is they really get to hear that experience.

I think it's really important for kids to understand that, you know, we make decisions, we make laws, but there are real people and, you know, they have to live with these decisions.

I hope you learned that freedom is not free.

We had to fight for it.

We've got all kinds of liberties.

Freedom of speech, assemble and so forth.

But there's men that fought, fought and died for it.

And I hope they understand that.

Indeed.

Maggie.

Maggie Scholl, the teacher you just heard from.

And that story says her students spent about a month talking about Vietnam and preparing for a podcast featuring conversations with Vietnam veterans.