Students at Mars Area Middle School submitted information and pictures of their loved ones for its annual Wall of Honor. The wall was assembled on Tuesday. Submitted photo

Mars Area Middle School has a little over 500 students, and its annual Wall of Honor highlights just how many community members have ties to veterans.

The project to memorialize local veterans was started six years ago by Tanis Rose, a guidance counselor at the middle school, which houses seventh- and eighth-graders. Put together in honor of Veterans Day, the school’s spirit club collected information and pictures of loved ones of students and faculty who served in the military.

Courtney Waugaman, a teacher and the sponsor of the school’s spirit club, emphasized the importance and benefits of bringing the students together as a school, and that projects like the Wall of Honor is one way that helps do that.

“In some years we’ve only had 12 or 13 kids do it, but this year we’ve had about 50 kids respond,” Waugaman said. “I like when they write it, it means a little more coming from them.”

The pictures and descriptions sent in from students ranged from a great-grandparent who served in World War I to brothers and sisters currently deployed overseas. Several students submitted information for multiple family members, with military roots spanning multiple generations. Some submissions came from faculty too, such as Rose’s husband.

“I like to see all the different pictures. Especially some of these older pictures,” Waugaman said. “I can see, this one looks doctored. This one’s super old, like from World War I. It looks like someone colored it in. Then you have some black and white ones. Then you have ones from Vietnam. Then we have a couple that are current.”

Many of the loved ones who were honored by students were grandparents who served in and around the Vietnam War era.

“My grandfather, he was Air Force,” said Alex Crowley, who’s grandpa served in the mid-1960s. “He’s friendly, he’s really smart.”

Another student, Juliette Snyder, said her grandfather served in Thailand during the Vietnam War, and later in Germany. He was in air rescue, “so when a pilot got shot down, he would go rescue him.

“He definitely saved lives,” she said.

Juliette said she is glad that her grandpa is on the wall.

“So people can know what he did, and he can be remembered for it,” she said. “So he can be honored. It’s cool, the things he did.”

A good portion of parents and grandparents submitted by students for the wall served in the ’80s and ’90s. Sam Wiley, whose grandfather served in Kuwait, has multiple generations of family that served the United States overseas.

“It was my grandpa. I look up to him and I think its really cool that he did that for our country,” Sam said. “His two other sons, my uncles, one was in the Air Force and one was in the Army. They all did it because the oldest brother, my grandpa’s brother, he passed away in the Army, and they all did that to honor him.”

Some students are even more familiar with the military lifestyle. Lizzy Shaha describes herself as a real “military kid,” with her dad still serving. Serving in the Army as a signal officer since around 2006, he is getting his Ph.D. in AI computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, and will continue serving for at least a couple years after his degree completion.

“He was stationed in Afghanistan, and Kuwait, and Iraq. And we were stationed in Germany a couple years ago,” Lizzy said. “I really respect him for what he did.”

The students who shared their family’s stories were not only proud of being able to share their loved ones with their classmates, but also of what their family members did for the country.

“His name was Edwin Ott. His job was protecting and serving the country,” said Jackson Kaunert describing his great-grandfather who served in World War II as a first lieutenant in the Army.