Certainly sending students to the battlefields changes them forever. It may be financially impossible to fund every student travelling overseas, but I think the Lest We Forget project has a lot of merit. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. From from what I understand, the military records are being digitized and made available to students. So if a student wants to research a particular soldier, they can get his military records, photographs, and letters home. It's just amazing.
That has been very engaging for students, from what I understand, and it doesn't take a lot of money to fund it. I think the teachers get priority. Obviously Veterans Affairs is limited in what it can do in digitizing these things, but the schools and teachers get priority if they have a specific request in regard to a soldier.