Those whom we honored (the first eulogies)

There were eight teachers on our 2019 Understanding Sacrifice trip. Each of us had the honor of eulogizing one soldier or sailor who lost their lives during the war.

A statue at the top of the East Coast Memorial

The first two of us to do so were Leif and Gena. They each did so in April for sailors memorialized at the East Coast Memorial. Many of us have walked near or even by this memorial without realizing it. It's located in Battery Park.

I wasn't able to capture the specific names of Leif's and Gena's sailors from the tablets. These are two of the enormous tablets of those lost in the Battle for the Atlantic.

With each eulogy I'm surprised at the way in which the fallen hero's story is unique and interesting. Leif memorialized a sailor lost at sea in what was first called an accident, then changed to killed in action decades later. Turns out U-Boats were operating off the Maine coast as late as May 1945. Gena somehow came across another real character, a naval officer who before the war was well connected with the radio scene and who could even count Dorothy Lamour among those whom he dated.

Once we arrived in Europe, we visited two cemeteries. One of the teachers in my crew, Jeannine eulogized a soldier buried at Brittany Cemetery. Suzy also read a eulogy for an Iowan prepared by Manion, a staff member from ABMC who at the last minute had to excuse herself from the trip.

The marker for Jeannine's soldier on a beautiful day at Brittany American Cemetery.

This was my second visit to Brittany American Cemetery and it might be my favorite of the three that I have visited. The architect made a fairly serious effort to design the chapel in such a way as to complement the countryside near it. The focal point of the design is a chapel that looks rather modest. Inside there are a pair of murals on the two long walls showing the progress of the war. The arrangement of the graves is quite interesting, too. Their in neat curved arcs so as to resemble the badge for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.

Alan got permission for some of us to go up into the tower, which afforded some very nice views.

The countryside surrounding Brittany American Cemetery

One enters the cemetery through a gate then proceeds by the rear of the chapel.

Cathy and Merion

I don't know how often conditions are clear enough to see Mont-Saint-Michel from the tower. We had remarkably great weather all week.

Comments

Some Thoughts on Liberation

One of the markers placed by the French and Belgian governments to mark the path of the liberators. My greatest takeaway from this most recent trip involves some refined feelings about liberation. I'm writing this post in a time of high cynicism. And the were matters of which one could be cynical back in 1944, the year in which Charlie fought and died. This trip, however, left me with renewed appreciation for what our country did back in that war, helping me refocus on what I've had the chance to see and do the past few years. Christopher is the military historian who accompanied us on this voyage. In one of our webinars this spring, he made an offhand reference to a piece of scholarship about the Holocaust he said was worth reading. It's entitled Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. It's heavy. I can't say I read every chapter. But I read most of it on our bus rides this summer. And I'm glad I did. My unassigned reading. Saying that Bloo...

Day of Days

It's the seventy-third anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-Day. That means it is also the seventy-third anniversary of Bill's death. Bill, of course, is 1st Lt. Edmund William Duckworth. A map Lauren uncovered in her research. To learn about the circumstances of Bill's death, I have done a lot of reading to better understand what led up to and took place on D-Day. I saw a post today on Facebook that discussed, quite well, the anxiety, unease, apprehension, and even frivolity that characterized the soldiers on the night before the invasion. D-Day was months in the making, and the soldiers who landed on those five beaches on June 6 had been preparing for the invasion for weeks or even months. In the immediate week before the invasion, they were queued up in embarkation areas and on ships, awaiting their chance to go. They were penned up for days. Knowing this adds more weight to the very difficult call General Eisenhower had to make, whether or not to go on June 6...

Normandy American Cemetery: Our Students' Eulogies

Bill's name is visible on the First Infantry Division Memorial found between the Normandy American Cemetery and Omaha Beach. The culmination of our Normandy Institute experience took place on Tuesday with the students’ eulogies. Each of our students had the task of offering appropriate words of remembrance at their soldier’s grave. Typically these eulogies lasted approximately five minutes. We worked through the cemetery from back to front, which means Lauren offered her words second. Altogether fifteen students spoke. I didn’t once feel tempted to look at my phone or check the time. It was the most meaningful day I’ve spent with students in a long time. Our procedure at each grave followed the same pattern. Lynne and Amanda would scout out where the grave was and the rest of the group would find them there. At each grave, Frank would assist the student in putting sand on the soldier’s name, rank, unit, and state so that the information would stand out. The studen...

Mr. Johnson in Normandy

Search This Blog