A nun applauds singers while holding an American flag Friday morning at Catholic High School. 

Catholic High School applied its Panther Pride to a show of patriotism on Friday morning.

A group of history and social studies teachers at the school arranged a Veterans Day rally in the local parochial school’s main gymnasium. Students of all ages waved miniature American flags from bleachers lining both sides of the gym. Additional chairs were set up on the basketball court for additional guests.

Several faculty members stood along the back wall.

Junior Kate Crochet read student essays inspired by photos of veterans published in the New York Times, including her own. Senior Trey Ambrose read a poem written by a soldier.

Judice then introduced 1st Sgt. Michael Bertrand II, Bronze Star veteran of the Louisiana National Guard. Bertrand, an Abbeville native and Vermilion Catholic High School graduate, had a 20-year military career serving twice in the Persian Gulf — first in the Gulf War of the early 1990s and, then, almost 15 years later, in 2004 in the Iraq War.

Bertrand said his life changed the day he got to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he learned to march, to shoot and to throw grenades.

“That’s where I learned self-discipline, where I learned leadership, teamwork and self-respect,”  he said.

Bertrand got choked up speaking about his return to Iraq in 2004. After his first deployment, he had gone to college, gotten married and started a family. He was called for deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom on April 14, 2004.

“For 18 months I was away from my family,” he said. “To put that in perspective—my daughter, when I left, she was 3; I returned and she was 5.”

“All I did,” Bertrand said, “was what I was asked to do.”

The song for each branch of the military was played, while a photo montage of locals that had served in those branches was projected on a screen. The Marine Corps montage included excerpts from the 1949 John Wayne film Sands of Iwo Jima. A chorus lead the crowd in singing “American the Beautiful and in “God Bless America.”