Marshall Islands Students Honor the Victims of Sandy Hook

Posted by Doug Carey / December 28, 2012

Doug Carey serves as Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. Embassy Majuro.

Majuro Cooperative School in the Republic of the Marshall Islands put away their traditional red school uniforms and instead wore green and white - the school colors of Sandy Hook - to honor the children and teachers who lost their lives in Newtown.

In a condolence card delivered to Ambassador Thomas Armbruster on December 21, the students said, “even though we are half a world away and living on a tiny island in the Pacific, we felt the pain…of the families and the community of Newtown.” Even though the United States and the Marshall Islands are geographically very distant from each other, the connection between the peoples of our two countries is particularly close.

The Compact of Free Association between the Marshall Islands and the United States allows Marshallese students to travel, live, work and study in the United States; nearly all Marshallese have family members living in the United States. The Co-op students hope that their small gesture - a warm illustration of the feeling of kinship the people of the Marshall Islands and the United States share with each other - can bring some comfort to the families affected by the tragedy.

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