[Reading-hall-of-fame] Fwd: Vets Day 2025

[Thomas Sticht]

Adult Educators Remembered on Veterans Day!

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Subject: Vets Day 2025
To: Thomas Sticht <tgsticht at gmail.com>


Literacy Teachers Fight Illiteracy During War Time:

A Message for Veterans Day 2025

Tom Sticht

International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)

November 11, 2025 is Veterans Day in the United States of America. Veterans
Day is observed as a national holiday to honor all those who have served in
the armed forces of the United States. Among these are many educators who
have performed their military service by teaching undereducated military
recruits how to improve their literacy skills to better perform their jobs
and to communicate with loved ones back home.

Cates (2022) explains that the explosion in technological advancements that
the US Army adopted before, during, and after World Wars I and II increased
the importance of literacy ability in military activities. He notes that
Sticht (2002) provides an historical perspective from the colonial and
early national periods, where the military at times provided literacy
education for servicemembers and the effect these programs had on
servicemembers during and after their military service.

Whenever I visit Washington, DC I try to find time to honor those who died
during the Vietnam War whose names are carved into the black stone of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This is a very personal experience for me
because I came into contact with thousands of the young men who  fought in
Vietnam. And not just any of the young men, but a very special group, those
who were the undereducated youth typically cast-off by society as losers.
My job was to find out what kinds of jobs poorly literate men might best be
suited for, and to develop literacy programs that would help thousands of
these barely literate young adults improve their literacy skills so they
could do the jobs they had volunteered for or had been drafted to do in the
Army of the United States.

Improving the reading skills of undereducated Army recruits took on a
special meaning for both the adult literacy teachers and the new soldiers
themselves. It was entirely possible that their lives and the lives of
their comrades would depend upon their ability to read directions for
administering
first aid treatments to themselves and their buddies. I recall the
enthusiasm with which small groups of men would work on a reading passage
dealing with life saving first aid steps because they knew that in a war
like that of Vietnam, they might really need to be able to read,
comprehend, and use directions for administering first aid to keep
themselves or their buddies alive.

When I celebrate Veteran's Day, I have a special place in my thoughts for
the hundreds of thousands of undereducated, less literate veterans who have
served our nation honorably. I also think of the thousands of veteran adult
literacy educators who, through their dedication to fighting illiteracy,
have helped thousands of these military personnel succeed. I have visited
the National World War II museum in New Orleans, the World War II, Korean and
Vietnam War memorials in Washington DC, but I have found no stone monuments
to these veteran teachers of literacy. But I know that our nation's
struggle for freedom has relied upon books as well as on bullets and bombs!

To celebrate the lives of military literacy teacher veterans and their
adult learner veterans I have compiled a number of my brief research notes
into one report entitled, “FIGHTING ILLITERACY IN TIMES OF WAR”. These
notes discuss the work of such notable literacy teachers of military
students as Captain Garry and Caroline Clark during the World War I era,
who later went on to found the great magazine to help children learn to
read called Highlights for Children! Another note talks about the World War
II work of the famous musician and actor, Desi Arnaz, husband of Lucille
Ball in real life and onTV in the  I Love Lucy series, and his role in
teaching U.S. Army personnel to read in WW II. The full Contents of the
report include::

Chapters:

1. Introduction to Fighting Illiteracy in Times of War

2. Former Slave Girl Fights Illiteracy in the Civil War

3. Learning to Read With the Doughboys in World War I

4. Learning to Read with Private Pete & Sailor Sam in World War II

5. The Reading Formula That Helped Win World War II

6. Join the Conga Line for Literacy in World War II

7. Learning to Read in the “Forgotten War” of Korea

8. The Functional Literacy (FLIT) Program of the Vietnam War Era

9. Songs in the Literacy Lessons of the World Wars

10. VESL for Victory and Independence

11. Associationism, Behaviorism, Constructivism:

     The ABCs of Adult Literacy Education

12. Paul Witty & Private Pete in World War II

13.  A "Marshall Plan" for Adult Literacy in Industrialized Nations

14. Swinging the Sword of Literacy in Iraq

15. Waiting for the Watermelons:  Remembering 9/11

The full report on Fighting Illiteracy in Times of War is available online
at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320024840_FIGHTING_ILLITERACY_IN_TIMES_OF_WAR_An_anthology_of_brief_historical_notes_by_Tom_Sticht


References

Cates, S. (2022). The Influence on American Post-Secondary Education by
United States Military and Veteran Programs Resulting from Changing
Technology, Reform-Minded Leaders, and Large Military Operations.  A
Dissertation Submitted to The Faculty of Liberty University In Candidacy
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History.

Sticht, Thomas G. “The Rise of the Adult Education and Literacy System in
the United States: 1600-2000.” The Annual Review of Adult Learning and
Literacy 3 (2002): 10– 43.
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