Kidsday: A surprise visit by Lt. Burgess

June 22, at Longwood Middle School, is a day everyone will remember. Kids from a few homerooms got together because we had a secret we needed to share with one of our classmates, Katie Burgess. Her sister, Rebecca, is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, and she has been in Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. She is a first lieutenant in the Marines. She was supposed to come home on leave June 24.

We all gathered in one of the auditoriums to Skype with Rebecca. Our teacher, Michael MacKenzie, set this up. We had been doing this all year long. As an end-of-the-year tribute, we were supposed to sing some special songs to her and thank her for her service to our country. We also had lots of relatives, teachers and special friends in on the video conference. As we started to Skype, we had some "technical difficulties," and the computers went down. As we waited for the connection to come back up, Rebecca walked into the room to surprise her sister!

Katie told us, "Well, today was just a big surprise. I didn't even know she was coming, and today was just a great day."

She added, "I last saw her [in person] maybe like a year ago. She's home for about a week maybe because she has a short vacation and then she has to go back to California. . . . We will go out to dinner and have a barbecue at our house."

Katie told us her sister went to Longwood Middle School when she was younger. We asked Katie if she plans to follow in her sister's footsteps. Katie said, "Yes!"

Rebecca added, "I would like to stay in the Marine Corps for a little while longer past my initial contract."

Afterward, we held a reception for her in the school's cafeteria.