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BILL HUTCHENS AND MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Lesson for the afternoon:
"What should we write to soldiers in Iraq?"
Steve Leifsen posed that question Thursday to his Pope Elementary School sixth-graders, and the kids came up with several ideas.
"Sports stuff."
"Weather."
"What's going on in the news."
"What we're doing in school."
Leifsen's Puyallup students have a special pen-pal connection to the 5,000-some soldiers in Fort Lewis' first Stryker brigade, who left in November for a year's duty to help restore peace and order in Iraq.
For one boy, the connection goes deeper. Twelve-year-old Ben O'Day is the son of Army First Sgt. Eugene O'Day, the top enlisted soldier in the brigade's headquarters company.