COMMACK SCHOOLS

Cara DeVita’s second-grade class at Wood Park wrote letters on Veterans Day to ensigns and other officers based at the Navy’s nuclear submarine school in Charleston, South Carolina.

On Tuesday, the students were surprised to learn they received responses — handwritten letters, with pictures and gifts.

Amanda McMahon, an aide for the second-grade class, had sent the letters to her nephew, ensign Charles Livingston.

Livingston shared the second graders’ letters with his colleagues at the submarine school.

One by one, DeVita on Tuesday put the Navy officers’ letters on the screen at the front of her classroom — each addressed to an individual student. DeVita then read the responses aloud for everyone in the class to hear.

The Navy officers included photos of themselves in uniform with their replies. They also shared a video they took of a jet whizzing by their submarine, and even sent the students keychains with an atom design.

In the original letters, the students had asked questions including the officers’ favorite foods while on the submarine.

And the Navy officers gladly replied, noting the officers are fed very well by “culinary specialists” to keep them focused at work. Their favorite foods while on the submarine include chicken cordon bleu — which they refer to as “hamsters” — and chocolate chip cookies.

When DeVita read aloud one lieutenant’s letter, in which he noted he was from East Northport on Long Island, the second graders applauded.

The students were delighted to learn that some of the officers spend downtime playing on a Nintendo Switch.

The second graders also learned that the Navy personnel sleep in bunk beds on the submarine and that the submarine relies on sonar — like a bat — and has no windows.

The officers occasionally will even fish from the submarine when it’s not submerged and then eat what they catch.

The officers asked follow-up questions to the second graders. So the letter writing figures to continue.