Naval officer returns students’ kindness
As a show of appreciation, a thank-you note simply wouldn’t do.
U.S. Navy Lt. Jon Weissberg, fresh from deployment aboard the USS Harry S. Truman in the Middle East, was determined to do something more. So he returned to Mariner’s Christian School in Costa Mesa, where his military journey began years before.
The 2002 graduate of the school wanted to show just how much his shipmates really enjoyed the phone cards and care packages that the students had sent to the aircraft carrier after they “adopted” the ship for the school year. Friday, Weissberg returned the kindness with a multimedia presentation about life aboard a U.S. warship during Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
He wanted to make sure the students understood how extraordinary their generosity was and what it meant to his fellow sailors.
“I mean, $12,000 in phone cards is incredible,” Weissberg said. “My commanding officer, who has over 20 years of experience in the Navy, was just flabbergasted.”
The slide show and in-flight Go-Pro video Weissberg worked on for four months gave an informative and entertaining view of his job as a naval aviator. It kept an auditorium full of middle-schoolers entranced.
He works in a jet fighter but reminded everyone he lives on a boat.
“Life on board … it’s not fun,” Weissberg told his audience. “It’s very cramped. The biggest thing we get on board is care packages.”
Underscoring the importance of the gifts from the school, he added, “The day you get a letter is the best day ever.”
Weissberg is a weapons systems officer, ranking high enough in aviation school to be assigned directly to combat operations after graduation.
Asked by a student which part of his job is the scariest, Weissberg didn’t hesitate. “The flight deck is one of the scariest places on Earth,” the lieutenant said. “There are lots of things happening, jet engines firing. You have to constantly keep your head on a swivel. Someone could easily get blown off the flight deck.”
Sue Celek, who was Weissberg’s second-grade teacher and later the school’s principal, said, “I think our students were very, very stunned into listening. Just the seriousness of what he does.”
Celek said that as a student Weissberg was “very polite, very obedient and respectful. Joyful. He was always the child that had a lot of love for people … and thoughtfulness.”
Weissberg first thought about the Navy in the third grade. A family trip to Washington, D.C., included a stop at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. His dad, Brian, said his son was impressed with the parade of cadets flashing swords and saluting one another.
“The rest of the day he was walking around saluting anybody he saw, as a third-grader,” the elder Weissberg said with a grin.
Weissberg graduated from the Naval Academy in 2012. He was an eighth-grader at Mariner’s Christian School on Sept. 11, 2001. The acts of terrorism against the U.S. that day “changed my life,” he said. “I didn’t know how, exactly, but I didn’t think I’d be fighting the war that came out of it 13 years later.”
Asked how he expected to affect the students with his presentation, he responded, “I hope I inspired them to be able to go out and do great things, and that little dream that you have as a kid, that you can actually get to that.”