PRINCETON — Athens School teacher Ann Pauley asks her students for one thing each Veterans Day — a letter addressed to a veteran. This year, she received many thankful expressions and one very extraordinary offering as a result of the familiar task.

Caressa Mainland, an eighth-grader, decided to write hers in Old En-glish format and put her whole heart into it.

“Every year, we write letters to veterans. A lot of times, they’re not very good,” she said Wednesday. “This year, I wanted to write something special.”

Old English style, full of dramatic prose and pronouns that are rare in modern times, is often easier to compose, according to Mainland, who clearly has a flare for eloquent expression.

She began the letter promising to take her time to share her thanks. In fact, the letter took most of a day to complete.

“How be it, that our country remains free? Thou has fought for our freed land to remain so. But it is not really enough to bow one’s head to ‘America.’ The blood shed has been of your brothers, of your hand. Protected are the next generation of doctors, teachers and writers of only your accord. We tend not to recognize a man live with not his sword, so now in no haste, I will now recognize you: a man who still hears a phantom shot behind him and stands mighty tall while confronting the life which hast unfairly continued its spin with no care as to how you’re left behind,” Mainland wrote.

Although her premise may sound complicated, the young writer said her goal was simple.

“I wanted to let them know that we care,” she said.

Her letter, which Pauley said was too special not to share, continues, focusing on the sacrifices veterans make even after leaving fields of combat.

“So answer me this. How pained were you, not while there was agony, but after? When all but time is restored. The tick of the clock ungenerously proportioned. Did the orchard no longer bear? Take note, that this must be the unrecognized terror of service.

“I know not of either, nor am I to say I might. A letter wrote is one thing and one sent is quite another; and as I intend to send this, I lie not to the ear of thy person. I know only what told and of my own, whatever it’s worth, mind and reasoning,” she wrote.

That part’s about how veterans recovery, and returning to a life that hasn’t followed the same path of the military men and women who left home for a greater cause.

“Nothing stopped while they were gone. It just kept going,” Mainland said.

And, she closed by focusing on the past and future paved and secured by veterans.

“Of Hodding Carver’s mouth:

“‘There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other, wings.’

“And although I am of the children he speaks, I find this true. Do you not? Our founding fathers wrote in simple origin our roots and as in a true tree, they have, of their own accord, intertwined and learned to hold its trunk.

“And thou, with thy brothers of your far family, have given us, America, the structure of these wings! My generation’s scientists, teachers, families and government will feather this solid wood, while others of mine will form the next.

“And hark! I, with other preceding writers, will write about it,” Mainland wrote, before signing the letter “Caressa M.”

The Athens Band member was set to play in the Princeton Vet Center Veterans Day Parade, but the rain forced school leaders to call of their performance.

Still, Mainland said veterans and their sacrifices remained close in her thoughts.

“I’ve gotten lots and lots of texts on the veterans memoirs and their service,” she said.

Pauley, who submitted Mainland’s letter, said she knew the letter was unique as soon as she began reading it.

“It is chock full of interesting, insightful words of wisdom and observation and definitely rings of wisdom beyond that expected of an eighth-grader,” Pauley said.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.