Michael Beecher ^{1 2}

   FamilySearch ID: G3JP-LRS.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Newspaper: The Sentinel: St. Michael Beecher, 11 May 2012, Carlisle, Cumberland, PA. ¹ ------
Students Skype with soldiers in Afghanistan
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(photo caption) Boiling Springs High School teacher Brett Sheaffer's students ask questions about life on a base and the "War on Terror."
(photo caption)Boiling Springs High School teacher Brett Sheaffer uses an iPad to Skype with his cousin Sgt. Michael Beecher, left, and Sgt. Anthony DAngelo, right, in Afghanistan on Thursday.
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Getting students interested in history can be as hard as making them fully understand something that they've never experienced, especially when it comes to war. The students in the various history classes at Boiling Springs High School have been learning about the various wars in America and abroad, but it became a lot more personal Thursday morning when Brett Sheaffer's first and second block classes got to have a chat with a soldier currently overseas in Afghanistan - a soldier who just happened to be Sheaffer's own cousin, Sgt. Michael Beecher. Because of the 8 12 hour time difference, Sgt. Beecher could only talk via Skype with the first two classes of the day, but those students were able to get a firsthand look at Sgt. Beecher's room and listen to a first-hand experience from someone living on base in Afghanistan. Connecting his cousin with his students was something Sheaffer thought could help the high schoolers understand what the "War on Terror" was really like. "We thought this up over family Easter dinner," Sheaffer said. "We just started talking, and we thought it would be a good idea. I think Michael was just as excited if not more about the idea. He really wanted to talk to them about his experience." With some clearance from the high school and clearance from the military, Sgt. Beecher got the green light to answer questions from students from his base, located about 20 miles north of Kandahar. Sgt. Beecher, 26, already had two tours in Iraq before his deployment to Afghanistan in February. As a combat engineer with the 18th Engineer Co. deployed alongside the 32nd Stryker Brigade in the U.S. Army, he works mostly with explosive devices, or as his father Dennis Beecher puts it, he gets to blow stuff up.