Two stand out. My seventh-grade teacher was a veteran Peace Corps volunteer (what he did immediately after graduating from college), and an unusual male lay teacher at the Catholic school I attended. Long-haired, a product of his times. Last time I checked, a few years ago, he was still living. He married the big sister of my best friend from those years so we were in each other's lives more than just a teacher and student. I remember being at his apartment one weekend, he and his room mate Jack were re-enacting the boiled egg scene from Cool-Hand Luke, only they were eating canned olives, for some stupid, funny reason. After a while they were soaking the olives in root beer just to kill the taste, lmao! I learned a lot about the world from him.
The other was my drafting instructor in high school. A WW2 P51 pilot, he had 11 kills during the war so a "double ace". He was shot down defending bombers, and spent nearly two years in a luft stalag. He would not talk about his capture, other than to tell his idiot students that "it wasn't like Hogan's Heroes." Retired a full colonel, without a doubt one of this country's Greatest Generation and an honor to have studied at his side. I think the young generation amused him, more than anything, but he did keep his eye open for talent, and nurtured it when he found it.