You see them all over — little free libraries, adorned with the motto: “Take a Book, Leave a Book,” now one has become the Eagle Scout project of Alexander Nunes of Hanson, who is a member of Whitman’s Troop 59.

Lowe’s donated all the $640 worth of construction materials needed for the project.

“Since they donated the materials, I didn’t need to do fundraising,” he said. Nunes said he isn’t certain of the date for his upcoming Eagle Court of Honor yet, as he is still working to finish his last two merit badges — including hiking.

The project, worked on by a few fellow Scouts and adults who wielded the power tools, took about a month to construct.

“We could only get people together on the weekends, and there were a lot of small details,” he said. “It was well done.”

The kiosk is already in place ad being used, Nunes said, noting he doesn’t have a particular dedication ceremony planned.

“I just wanted to see if people would use it, and luckily, they are using it and enjoying it,” he said, noting that the public has been using it respectfully.

Nunes’ project is one of the Little Free Library [littlefreelibrary.org] non-profit (officially earning its 501(c) 3 designation in 2012) projects across the country. His project is posted at the Head Start building across the street from Whitman Park, looking like a trim, miniature house, painted white to match the Head Start building.

“There’s been a lot of them popping up and I thought one would be good to place near the park,” Nunes said in an interview last week. “I collected donations from anyone willing to give books.”

From here on out, Nunes said he will re-stock it occasionally if it gets too low, but it’s operated on the honor system of take a book/leave a book.

In some places the little free libraries had been stocked with new books, only to be cleaned out by thieve and needing to be completely restocked.

Despite the location in front of the Head Start building, the books weren’t specifically geared toward any particular age group.

He said the design of the miniature building his little free library, as well as the paint job, were meant to represent the town and the style of houses in the area.

The design of the kiosks is in keeping with the origin of the original Little Free Library built by Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisc., in 2009 — a model of a little red one-room schoolhouse in tribute to his mother, a teacher who loved to read. According to the littlefreelibrary.org site, he built more for neighbors and friends who loved the original and a friend, Rick Brooks of UW-Madison, joined the project.

“They were inspired by community gift-sharing networks, ‘take a book, leave a book’ collections in coffee shops and public spaces, and most especially by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie” the website states.

Brooks and Bol set out to surpass the 2,508 Little Free Libraries — the number Carnegie sought to fund across the English-speaking world. They surpassed that goal in August 2012, a year and a half before their target date. By the end of 2012, there were more than 4,000 of the officially chartered Little Free Libraries in existence, up from 400 the year before.

The School Committee was updated on school start times. COVID protocols and heard updates on the strategic plan working groups at its Wednesday, Aug. 24 meeting.

The district’s schools opened for the 2022-23 school year on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

“We are ready to go,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said at the meeting. “School is ready to open. Professional staff – we’re fully staffed, but I’m going to make a plea to the public right now … I’m in dire need of paraprofessionals at all levels.”

Szymaniak said he also needs duty aides – lunchroom assistants for the elementary and middle schools – and long-term substitute teachers, especially at Conley and Indian Head schools and the high school.

Those positions are all posted on the SchoolSpring website [schoolspring.com].

He also said bus and van drivers are needed by both First Student and North River Collaborative.

“The lack of bus drivers will impact us in the future when people start calling out sick and things like that,” he said. 

Szymaniak said for the first time since the pandemic started, he had an extremely short COVID report.

“I asked [lead nurse] Lisa Tobin for an update and she said, ‘We’re as close to 2019 as ever,’ so we’re opening as normal,” he said. “We’re only asking students – if they test positive at home – to stay home for five days.”

Masks will only be required in the nurse’s office.

The strategic plan working groups provided an update on their work over the summer. Chair Christopher Howard said no votes were planned on the working groups’ reports.

Uniform start times

With the start of a new school year in mind, as well as requests over the summer from parents and students asking that start times be pushed back, Symaniak reviewed the work of the Uniform Start Times working group.

He has included further investigation of the issue in his years’ goals. Hurdles along the way include financial implications, teacher contract renegotiations, student work schedules, younger students at home alone after school, special education can availability and the impact on athletic schedules, among others. 

“We think 9 a.m. is a good start time, that will definitely have an impact on high school schedules and our league,” he said. “We need to dig deeper. There were a lot of what-ifs at our meetings.”

Benefits include more downtime for high school students at the end of the day, parents will have older students home with younger siblings after school or can find work and the lower grades administrations seem to be satisfied.

Szymaniak is also looking into what plans the state may have in mind regarding start times as well as the possible budget implications of any change.

Career readiness

“This is really supposed to be just an information share,” said Howard, who was a member of the Postgrad Readiness and Early College and Work group. “We really focused in on early college pathways, additional post-graduation type opportunities in terms of career readiness and then we looked at early college, as well.”

The group researched what other school districts and the state has to offer as part of their work, Committee member Beth Stafford said, including business innovation pathways programs.

“We’re hoping to do a medical one, because we feel that it’s not just about college,” Stafford said. “It’s about readiness for all different aspects of the world.”

Dual enrollment with Quincy College has also been discussed. The school already has a program with Quincy College involving courses in pre-calculus, sociology and accounting with the aim of adding marketing, anatomy & physiology and statistics. 

High School Guidance Counselor Ruth Carrigan said that a “robust” internship program is already in place for several years, in the past connected to a work-based learning program, which has lost some focus recently before COVID stopped it completely.

She said the plan is to bring it back.

Counselors also work closely with students to develop a post-graduate career plan.

“It’s not the same for everybody,” Committee member Fred Small said. “Everyone has a different need. Everyone has a different desire, and to be able to accommodate so many students in that aspect is fantastic.”

He did express concern about the sustainability of grants. Stafford also said someone had to be put in place to run the programs.

Related arts

The K-8 Related Arts working group’s blueprint includes foreign language — what a language is and how it looks like in today’s day and age, according to Assistant Superintendent George Ferro. The group analyzed how teachers are used today, how to bring in new staff and programs as well as how students learn best.

Starting with a STEM and robotics program, during a related arts period already offered, from K-8 was recommended because there is no impact from a personnel standpoint. Using library periods in earlier grades adds a literacy component including early coding and STEM aspects. In grades three to five use of an online program called Robotitfy works off an ingenuity platform that fits with all the students’ hand-held devices, again during time already allotted in their schedule. Middle school students already have STEM or technology application classes.

“This would be infused in it and would be a formal way for students to do it,” Ferro said. The cost starting point for a year would be $55,000 with that method.

Introducing foreign languages, too, could be built into the day for grades seven and eight through an online course that “doesn’t have to always be during the day,” Ferro said.

“You would offer online Spanish to all eighth-grade students in both middle schools, that way there are no equity issues,” he said. “We’re providing a service, we’re providing a device and we’ll talk about the support for that.”

Online programs also provide on-demand tutoring outside of school.

“We would hire one Spanish teacher as we begin this,” Ferro said, who would provide in-person support to interested students during academic extension time. The teacher would serve both middle schools, who could also offer a introductory cultural class in grade six and one school and grade seven in another.

The Spanish course would cost $24,000 per year for Whitman and Hanson combined through Imagine Inginuity with the on-demand tutoring option costing $4,400. The teacher would cost about $75,000.

“You would be making students competitive with other students locally, within the state and nationally,” Ferro said. Students would start with Spanish II at the high school. He argues it could open avenues for other courses.

While he admitted it would have to be explore it with the teacher’s union, Ferro said it could open different teaching opportunities for staff.

Learning a language – whether coding, ASL or a foreign language –  expands the mind’s ability to think critically and problem solve, making decisions quicker, as well as introducing them to a broader world.

Student culture

The Student Climate, Culture and Support working group will be collecting information over the coming school year to gauge where the culture is as a district before the meet again as a group to make recommendations.

FAMILY FUN: The Whitman Police Department hosted its annual observance of National Night Out at Memorial Field on Tuesday, Aug. 16. Members of the Department’s Auxiliary Police grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, police K-9 units demonstrated their dog training methods, the State Police Air win ‘dropped in,’ and kids got to climb on public safety vehicles, bounce houses and police-themed cut-outs for photos. See more photos, page 6

Images courtesy WPD Facebook

It’s time to have a pro-transit administration, according to one candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor — and he says the number one job is improving safety and access to reliable mass transit.

“A healthy, well-functioning MBTA is generating economic growth for the state, is generating jobs, is creating tax revenue that can help the whole rest of the state,” said state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, in a Friday, Aug. 12 interview with the Whitman-Hanson Express. “I think, sometimes, that message is lost because the current governor tends to present the T as a problem for Boston, rather than something that the whole state needs to work on.”

Lesser faces two opponents — Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll and state Rep. Tami Guveia of Acton in the state Primary on Tuesday, Sept. 6.  Republicans, and former state representatives Kate Campanale of Leicester and Leah Cole Allen of Peabody, will also square off in a primary vote Sept. 6.

Lesser is the only candidate from western Massachusetts on the ballot as well as the only one with federal experience, he points out. He stressed that he worked on the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama Administration and knows Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, which could help with communication as the state works with the USDOT’s Federal Transit Authority (FTA) considers whether it will take over the MBTA system, he said.

When an Orange Line train caught fire last month, the video of the smoky blaze on a bridge over the Mystic River illustrated the state of MBTA management for many riders and state officials.

A member of the state Senate Transportation Committee, Lesser said MBTA Genera Manager Steve Poftak and state Secretary of Transportation Jeremy Tesler attended a recent hearing to say the T is safe. Two days later, the Orange Line train caught fire and a woman jumped into the Mystic River to escape.

“There’s no amount of money that can change that culture,” Lesser said. “They just have a disregard for passengers. If your T car catches fire, you don’t get a refund.”

Following the Orange Line fire, a Framingham Line train was stuck with no power or air conditioning during the recent oppressively hot weather. Passengers pried the doors open and climbed a fence to safety. An MBTA bus also caught fire during the past month, and the MBTA has shut down the Orange Line and part of the Green Line.

“It’s really terrible — and safety, obviously, has to be the number one priority,” Lesser said. “We’ve also got to keep an eye toward expanding [rail service] to more places.”

After Gov. Duval Patrick and Lt. Gov. Tim Murray worked to expand rail service to Worcester and improve rail service between 2007 and 2011, with 14 trains a day going into and out of that city, Worcester has been “completely transformed,” he said.

“There’s thousands of new units of housing in the pipeline, there’s hundreds of thousands of square feet of new lab space under construction,” he said. “New restaurants. The WoSox stadium. It’s been a really big benefit.”

A recent WBZ I-Team story has found, however, that problems now extend to “every [MBTA] line and include buses and the Commuter Rail.”

The FTA and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) are both investigating incidents on the Commuter Rail, run by Keolis, a multinational transportation company based in France, and some foresee a federal takeover of the T down the line. While Lesser doesn’t think a federal takeover is imminent, the Washington D.C. Metro was taken over in 2015, so there is precedent for such a move by the FTA, he said.

“The hope is we can work more in partnership with the federal government to avoid a takeover, but also to get the support we need to make the fixes — that’s really the key.”

In 2014 weekend service on the Fitchburg, Franklin, Greenbush, Haverhill, Kingston, Lowell, and Needham lines was restored after more than two years without it.

Jokes and bad news about the MBTA is not only no laughing matter, Lesser said, it breaks down public trust in the ability of the state to do big things.

Starved of funding for the past 40 or 50 years, he said, 25 percent of the MBTA budget now on debt service that they’ve had for generations.

“It’s crowded out the capital investment, it’s crowded out hiring,” he said. “But the second problem that really isn’t about money, is it’s become a step-child of the state government. There’s no accountability.”

Despite these challenges — or maybe, in part because of them, state Lesser is running for lieutenant governor on a platform that stresses the need for passenger rail improvements in Massachusetts.

“People, I don’t think, realize how much of the state has no rail access at all,” Lesser said. The problem with the rail expansion issue is that some people view it as taking the focus away from the core system.

“Actually, I think the opposite,” he said. “I think the continued health of the system relies on expansion because it’s going to bring new people in and connect more regions of the state.”

Lesser sees potential for it to create more political buy-in around the state for supporting mass transit, as well.

The state has received nearly $1.8 million to improve rail infrastructure, enhance safety, and improve train capacity in Western Massachusetts near Springfield Union Station, a key issue for Lesser, who  said his goal is eventually high-speed rail service to western Massachusetts under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program.  Thirty-one other states are also receiving CRISI grant program funding under awards announced on Thursday, June 2.

“It’ll take us a little bit of time to get there, but the idea here is, if you could connect Pittsfield, Springfield and Worcester to Boston — especially the three biggest cities in the state: Springfield, Worcester and Boston — by rail, it would be transformative on a number of levels and would really be a key to taking on some of the biggest challenges that we face,” he said.

It would be the single biggest greenhouse gas reduction project in state’s history, also reducing traffic congestion by removing thousands of cars from the state’s roadways.

“The Pioneer Valley area is one of the worst regions in the country for asthma,” Lesser noted. “Even in eastern Massachusetts, you’ve got really bad pollution and air-quality challenges.”

Another key element of the goal is “taking on the housing crisis,” creating thousands of units of good, affordable transit-oriented development.

“Imagine how many more communities would be able to be connected to that,” he said. “That’s going to be the key to getting housing prices under control. I don’t know how people live in Massachusetts anymore.”

Lesser said building the units would present thousands of really good, high quality jobs in those areas left out of the development around life sciences and tech firms.

The MBTA Communities program requires participating towns to present the guidelines to muncipal legisltive bodies  at a public hearing, and town/city planners must prove that has been done, along with the filing of a form with the state before May 2. The deadline for interim compliance is Dec. 31 and for the action plan, the deadline is July 1, 2023. New zoning regulations must be adopted by Dec. 31, 2024. Towns have until March 31, 2024 to apply for termination of compliance. Both Whitman and Hanson have voted to acknowledge that the program has been presented to them with further discussion to come.

“It sounds to me like they’re trying to address energy issues with the housing crisis, but you also don’t want to lose the flavor of what it is to live in Hanson,” Selectman Joe Weeks during a March 15 discussion. “I’m very eager to see what [planners] come up with — I think it’s going to be an exciting by-law to kind of build and see what you can do.”

While local flavor and the zoning regulations that can go with the issue has been a hot topic, Lesser admits, a recent study indicated the state will be about 300,000 housing units short of the need by 2030.

He said the trend among younger adults is now to seek out smaller homes close to public transportation and near the shops and workplaces of a downtown center.

“I think this is a good example of where a lieutenant governor can work in partnership with communities, because as a top-down it doesn’t work,” Lesser said. The state could offer support to communities through MassWORKS grants to improve infrastructure and traffic patterns, the school center to make sure new students entering a district because of new housing are properly supported and teachers and staff get support they need. … I think that’s a great role for a lieutenant governor, which I think I’m well-suited to do because of the work I’ve done on transit.”

He said voters are also pointing to the state’s severe mental health crisis, especially in the schools, as well as child care affordability.

“For my own family, our child care bill is more than our mortgage,” Lesser said. “I’m hearing from young families all over the state that this is a major source of stress for them.”

WHITMAN — Samantha Kenn always liked to tag along with her brother Daniel, so when he became interested in joining the Boy Scouts of America, so did she.

At the time, however, only Girl Scouting was an option for girls. Scoutmaster Dr. Michael Warner says she tagged along anyway and in 2008 began earning unofficial merit badges.

By the time Boy Scouts of America (BSA) policy had changed and Samantha — or Mantha, as her brother calls her — officially joined Whitman’s Troop 22 on Feb. 1, 2019, it took her only three years to achieve the historic position as Whitman’s first female Eagle Scout on May 30, 2022. Her Court of Honor was held Saturday, Aug. 6 at the Cardinal Spellman Center.

She had planned to have her project completed by Christmas 2020, and again by Christmas 2021 after COVID-imposed pause.

Winter said she is only the second in the 60-town Cranberry Harvest District Council of Eastern Massachusetts. There have been only 2,000 female Eagle Scouts nationwide so far.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my life, it’s a person is a person,” said Scout leader Rob Preskins, noting that when Samantha joined the Troop, he felt they should merge. “Different people can do different things and makes no matter who you are or where you come from, the color of your skin or your gender. And I’m so glad that Troop 22 took on Troop G, because they came in, they saw and they conquered — and it was awesome to watch. We had front-row seats.”

He said Samantha led that charge.

In presenting his gift to his Troop’s newest Eagle — a talking stick he made that he joked she didn’t need — Winter said she was everything.

“I always thought there’s no reason for us to be separate and I’m glad that we’ve shifted as an organization,” he said. “But I don’t think that that would have mattered to you. You’d have done it all, even if you couldn’t have earned the badges, you would have still done it anyway — just to show up your brother.”

He said Samantha reminded him of his daughter Emily, who wanted to be a Boy Scout, which was not permitted at the time.

Her parents Jim and Tracey also spoke about their inspiring daughter.

“When they first introduced the idea of letting girls into Scouts, I said, ‘I don’t like the idea,’” Jim Kenn Jr., said, noting he felt girls would change the social dynamic, but at the same time his daughter was doing the work and earning Weblos pins while hanging out with her brother. “I didn’t want it to happen. I was against it. … All along, she was doing it and I realized how much of a hypocrite I was. This was wrong.”

He realized it was less about the boys than it was about limiting the opportunities for girls.

“There wasn’t anything about Boy Scouts that she didn’t like, other than she wasn’t allowed to be part of it,” Tracey Kenn said, noting she was wearing her “mom clothes” in recognition of her dual roles as Samantha’s mother and scoutmaster. 

Before the BSA allowed female members, Whitman Pack 22 had created a program permitting younger siblings of any gender to join in activites.

She said Samantha has excelled at school, as well, becoming a member of the French Honor Society, Pre-med Society, Yearbook Committee, Students Against Destructive Decisions and Dollars for Scholars, and has been accepted into 10 colleges — including nine nursing programs, three honors programs and two psychology minor programs. 

“She is very driven,” Tracey Kenn said. “What isn’t written in that program is her desire to always be better than she was yesterday. … What also isn’t written is the struggle of being a strong female in an organization that is primarily men and boys and balancing as to not appear too bossy, but also not submissive.”

Samantha will attend Regis College, majoring in nursing this fall.

 “I’m very proud of you,” Eagle Court Committee Chairman Geoff told Samantha in declaring the ceremonies opened, referring to the challenge presented by her project — a built a 12-by-20-foot, raised pavilion at Hobart’s Pond in Whitman. “That was a lot of work and there was a lot of frustrations involved, and you kept plowing through it.”

Winter said the huge project was very much in keeping with Samantha’s big thinking. 

He credited her for bringing in actual experts for the architectural plans and building, joking that if it had been left to some of the Scoutmasters it’s possible the structure might still be standing, but he couldn’t guarantee that.

Samantha raised more than $13,000 for supplies and materials and led more than 90 Scouts, friends and family members in doing the 1,224 hours of work for the town of Whitman.

“You’ve been a driving force in my Scouting experience and everyone else’s Scouting experience,” said her friend Acadia Manley, who joined a couple months after Kenn. “I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Samantha’s friend and fellow Eagle Scout Zekar-Yah Henry directed Scouts in the ceremony opening and closing and lit the ceremonial candles representing the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

Other Scouts from Troop 22 described the various requirements and accomplishments of rank advancements in Samantha’s Trail of the Eagle and her brother presented the Eagle Charge — the rights and responsibilities of this ultimate rank before she received her Eagle badge from her mother Tracey Kenn.

In turn Samantha awarded a Mentor Pin and a new tool belt to John Bergeron and each of her parents.

In another break with Scouting tradition, she awarded her mother’s pin to her father James R. Kenn Jr.

“Throughout my journey, I have given my Mother’s Pin to my dad, because my mom got all Danny’s pins and I like to show my appreciation of my dad,” she said.

“Wow!” said a voice from the audience.

“You go, Jim!” shouted another.

“You are a mother,” joked another.

She also presented pins to her grandparents, James R. Kenn Sr., and Gail Gorson, in honor of the hours in which they passed along their wisdom to her.

“You’ve been so much to me in the last 18 years, my friend … and my rock” Daniel Kenn said. Pledging to always be her best friend, even though her room would make a really nice 3-D printer room, he joked.

Selectman Justin Evans presented a proclamation from the Select Board declaring Aug. 6 as Samantha Kenn Day in Whitman. Ed Miller, a legislative aide of state Sen. Mike Brady presented her with a citation from the state Senate in honor of her Eagle Scout achievement.

American Legion Commander Richard Cameron presented her with a Good Citizenship Citation and a check for $100. VFW Commander Roger Hendricks presented her with a congratulatory letter and a check as well. 

“Today’s Scouts are tomorrow’s leaders,” Hendricks said, adding that by breaking the glass ceiling she left a path for other young women to follow. “You have established yourself as a leader. … You are an Eagle. We will watch you soar.”

Henricks then asked all the Scouts to join him in saluting Samantha.

A representative of former state Rep. Geoff Diehl — who also attained the rank of Eagle Scout in his youth —  also presented his congratulations and a gift.

While coverage of the towns’ and school districts’ government business is the bread and butter of local cable access channels, it is perhaps the original programming that gives it that local flavor.

Joining the Whitman-Hanson Cable Access (WHCA) TV programming this spring has been “Outdoor Adventures,” with staff members taking the viewer along with them on day trips and vacations during the COVID pandemic.

It caught on from there.

“What we tried to do when COVID came about was create a show brand that could allow people to do a one-off about,” WHCA Director Eric Dresser said, explaining the departure from the usual fully-formed show concepts people generally come in to produce from start to finish. “We did it with the staff first to show people what was possible and we are still looking for content to be submitted wherever they might be going.”

Going to take a trip to the Boston Harbor islands, Cape Cod Canal or the dunes of Provincetown? Take some video of your trip, he said.

“It’s an opportunity for people to put together a travelogue and do as much or as little as they want. Episodes do not have to be full half-hours if people would rather to something shorter, and the WHCA staff can help with the editing. Another show brand, “Geekology,” offers the opportunity to explore a hobby.

Staff member Ryan Tully came up with “Outdoor Adventures” for which Dresser encouraged the staff to go out and film their own outings.

“You could go out wearing your mask, or you could go out by yourself and we could do that even through the pandemic,” he said.

The eighth episode of “Outdoor Adventures,” airing last month and filmed last fall, reviewed the popular Burrage Pond Wildlife Management Area in Hanson. Previous programs offered a look at one-wheeling in Maine and Mountain biking in area parks.

Humor is infused with Ryan Tully’s hiking narration, which included a correction as the episode begins with a view of his van driving along the road between the bogs — accompanied by a record-scratch sound and an advisory that people are not supposed to do that. The Elm Street gate was down that day.

Kind of makes one wonder how the camera got there.

“There were some trucks [where workers were] doing some line work on the electrical wires that day and I drove right in and was told by someone from Hanson Conservation when I was leaving for the day, that I shouldn’t have parked there,” he narrated. “This will be the first of a few blunders during this trip.”

Park on the street is the first lesson here.

He also neglected to wear blaze orange during what was bow hunting season. Ooops. He also forgot there are two Burrage ponds as he paused to gain his bearings, during which periods he narrated into his hand-held camera.

He certainly walked a looong way that day.

The 2,000-acre former cranberry bog property spans both Hanson and Halifax. Because of those origins, he also frequently found paths impassable in the wetter autumn conditions due to water or mud on trails, which are unmarked.

He grades the parks after hiking them, but in this instance decided to hold off until he gets feedback from frequent visitors on what he could do better. His email is rtully@whca.tv.

Tully did another hiking episode at Pond Meadow Park in Weymouth/Braintree, spinning off his own series of Park Review shows.

“Today turned into quite an adventure,” he said. “If you plan to come here, do a little more planning. Don’t just jump into it the way I did.”

Dresser also produced one on one-wheeling – a kind of electric skateboard with one over-sized wheel – on the trails of Old Orchard Beach Forest. Another staffer filmed mountain bike enthusiast Bill Boles on his trail-riding.

“I think that things have semi-permanently changed from COVID and we’re just kind of trying to lean into those new styles,” Dresser said. “People are walking around with a video studio in their pocket with their cell phones, and we’re trying to lean into that, as well.”

To find more information about making an “Outdoor Adventure” show or another show concept at 781-447-4175 or whca.tv.

The program joins popular favorites like Richard Rosen’s “Buzz Around Bees” – The Season 4 debut focused on a new batch of bees and installing them in the hive —  along with Paul Sullivan’s show “The Famer’s Daugther.”

“Somebody said to me, ‘develop some programs,’” Sullivan joked. “I had a couple of ideas, but most of the things I’ve done have taken me ages before they go on the air just because I’ve got a certain vision for it and I keep slugging at it to get that working the way I want it to work.”

For something that someone just wants to get done, it’s a lot simpler, and information on the website can help, he said. 

By Tracy F. Seelye, Express editor
editor@whitmanhansonexpress.com

WHITMAN – The wounds of war can go beyond the ones that bleed, to the invisible pain of moral and psychological scars.

“It’s a paradox that I want to acknowledge – the veterans’ paradox,” author Michael J. Robillard says. “As a veteran, how can one voice an opinion on the military and its policies without falling victim to the binary, of sounding either like a pacifistic victim or a war-hawk shill?”

He said the first risks sounding like a broken victim or a person condemning one’s own country, military or comrades in arms, or risking conflating patriotism with enthusiastic, uncritical endorsement of all things military and all things war.

American Legion Post 22 on June 29 hosted a book discussion with Robillard, who wrote a book titled “Outsourcing Duty: The Moral Exploitation of the American Soldier,” with Bradley J. Strawser. [Oxford University Press, hardcover 240 pages, $35 — available on Amazon.com]

“This book is an attempt to walk a tightrope,” Robillard said of the widening civilian/military divide. “If this town were to deploy in WWI, the entire town would have [gone] together and come back and spent the entirety of our lives sorting through what it was that we just did.” 

By WWII, families like the Sullivans, who lost all five sons, who had insisted on serving on the same ship, when that ship was sunk in action, led to a policy of separating family members or residents of the same town in service. By Vietnam, differing operation tempos affected how troops were deployed. 

The all-volunteer force since Vietnam takes the entirety of war fighting and decision-making “and drastically pushes it behind a social veil, where 1 percent or 2 percent of the population are doing the war fighting.”

Matthew Quimby of the Post’s Sons of the American Legion group introduced Robillard, reading from one of the book’s back cover blurbs.

“‘Outsourcing Duty’ is the first serious and detailed analysis of the ways in which societies and governments expose their soldiers to moral as well as physical risk,” he read during the event broadcast by Whitman-Hanson Community Access TV. “Soldiers are compelled to fight in wars about which they are given a little information. They must take responsibility for the life-and-death decisions that involve a great risk of wrongdoing.”

Robillard spoke of a military ethics conference he attended in Spain in March 2018 where he spoke to a fellow West Point graduate, Maj. Ian Fishback [a year ahead of Robillard] and veteran of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, was one of three 82nd Airborne soldiers who had written in 2005 to the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about abuses of prisoners’ rights he had witnessed at a forward base in Fallujah, Iraq that “had gone unnoticed.” He chronicled in that letter what he saw as a military culture that was permissive toward the abuse of prisoners.

The friend had served three more tours after transferring to Special Forces before returning to West Point to become a philosophy professor, before working on his PhD at the University of Michigan.

Tragically, Fishback died at age 42 in an adult foster care facility. According to a New York Times report of his death, his family said his career “begun to unravel as a result of neurological damage or post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The last time Robillard had spoken to his friend was in a Veterans Day phone call a week before Fishack’s death.

“Ian was a scholar,” Robillard said. “He was a warrior. He was an examplar of what it meant to be an American citizen, and our country gravely failed him. … Ian’s situation is not unique at all – not for him, not for my generation, not for … the last set of wars that America’s been fighting.”

Woburn native Staff Sgt. Keith Callahan was buried in 2007 after he was killed in Iraq. Robillard called him “the best platoon sergeant I ever had,” when as a new second lieutenant, the author found himself in his first command posting from 2003-04. Callahan was killed in action on a later deployment.

Robillard also spoke of Abington’s Marine Sgt. Daniel Vasselian, killed in Afghanistan in 2013; Whitman native Maj. Michael Donohue of the 82nd Airborne, who was killed in action in Afghanistan a year later; and  Sgt. Jared Monti, also of  the 82nd Airborne, who hailed from Abington, killed in 2006 in Afhanistan.

“Anyone know his story?” Robillard asked about Monti. “Medal of Honor. I would be very surprised if many people in this area are even aware of it. It was news to me.”

He said he listed the local fallen as a “brief snapshot of the side effects of our nation’s ongoing wars, at least for the last 20 years.”

It is not just a Massachusetts issue, he said, but a national one that spans the country and expands generationally.

Of the 1 percent that was doing any fighting in U.S. wars, much of that was assigned to Special Forces units, according to Robillard. Considerations about warfare, including ethics, was being pushed off to the tip of that spear.

“The civil/military divide I’ve just described is still widening,” he said. “This isn’t a static thing.”

The three side effects the authors see are: unchecked military adventures, or the “forever wars;” a basic breakdown in the shared notion of citizenship; and the moral exploitation of soldiers.

The book largely focuses on the latter, exploring the relationship of exploitee vulnerability and exploiter benefit, according to Robillard and Strawser.

“This is an incomplete account of how persons or groups can be exploited,” Robillard said. “Persons can also be exploited, unfairly or excessively, by being made to shoulder excessive amounts of moral responsibility. We think that is what’s going on, at least, in part, with America’s relationship to its soldiers and to its veterans – at least during the last 20 years and the War on Terror.”

PTSD, moral injury and the growing problem of suicides among the veterans community is tracking something within the moral space that illustrates the problem.

The book also traces the demographics of vulnerability within the military – socio-economic background, geography, age, race gender and recruitment means and methods. Society, on the other hand, benefits from minimal disruption and physical risk to a tremendous institutional immunity to moral injury and dilemmas.

They also offer three possible prescriptions for the problem: recruitment reform and compensation; going back to some kind of ‘skin in the game argument,’ perhaps like the pre-Vietnam citizen soldier model of some type of draft so communities see actual tangible evidence of a war; or a national service model. Some of the soluions examined in the book range from removing profit margin for war, giving youth more likely to go to war a voice in whether or not there should be one and limitation of military forces to home defense purposes. 

“It doesn’t have to be national military service – fighting fires out in Wyoming or building roads or doing something — but at least gives some damn sense that we’re shared citizens that are doing our part to collectively share in our war-fighting decision making, and we’re shouldering the responsibility equitably,” Robillard said.

Robillard said he is “most sympathetic” to the prescription of requiring more skin in the game.