Lieutenant colonel says teaching keeps him young

and graduated from Chalmette High in 1974, started boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., in February 1975. The Vietnam conflict was winding down. The furor over the war had shaken American society to its foundations and led many people to question the military, but Pechon was 18 years old, and he had the same reasons for enlisting as many other young men: He wanted an education, and he wanted to serve his country.

"The general feeling of the public was antiwar, anti-military," he recalled. "I read about it and saw it on the news, but I never felt it in this community here, and it really -- it didn't bother me one way or the other."

Pechon trained as an aviation electrician, working on jets. Then the Corps sent him to college in an officers' program at the University of Mississippi, where he earned a business degree in economics in 1980. After graduating, he worked as a logistics and supply officer. Throughout the years, he was stationed in many locales, such as Camp Pendleton, Calif.; the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, S.C.; Quantico, Va.; Camp Lejeune, N.C.; Dallas; and San Antonio. Among the other places he traveled were Okinawa, Japan; England; Norway; Denmark; and Iceland.

Pechon's last assignment was at the Marine Corps Reserve Headquarters in New Orleans, where he worked as the deputy director of operations for the Fourth Force Service Support Group, overseeing the operation and training for a group of 10,000 service members throughout the world. He retired in January 2003 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

When he looks back on his years of service, he said, his favorite memories are his experiences training younger Marines.

"I feel like that keeps you young," he said. "It's part of the reason I'm a teacher now, the opportunity to work with young people, the energy that they have."

Pechon is open with his students about his career in the Marines, and he finds that many kids have misconceptions about the military.

"The boys that come into the classroom, the first thing they want to ask you is, 'How many people have you killed?' " said Pechon, who never was assigned to a combat operation. "And I've got to say that the biggest part of the military is not about doing that."

"You don't need people to go out and be cannon fodder," he said. "The weapons systems are so efficient and so good and so sophisticated that you need people with brains and the ability to learn how to operate those weapons systems. ... The volunteer force now is highly trained. They're smart. For the most part, they almost all have a high school diploma, and are well-equipped when they go in the military to perform their job, and are well-equipped when they leave to function in society at a high level."

As a social studies teacher, Pechon, who has visited 35 states with his wife and plans to reach all of them eventually, works to give students a more detailed and accurate perception of the world they live in and how it came to be. He runs his classroom efficiently, and he treats every student equally. He also helps students develop the ability to think critically about the world that is opening before them.

There is just one slight misconception he'd like to continue perpetuating.

"I like to keep the myth alive that I can kill somebody with one finger," he said, laughing. "I especially want the students to believe that."