June 23 Today was a truly memorable day with excellent lectures and a behind the scenes tour of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We started off the morning with a lecture on Nazi Germany by Dr. Jeffrey Richter of GWU. Next, and likely more memorable, was by Mr. Joshua Fennel of the WWII Division of the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. Mr. Fennel gave a truly remarkable talk on the recovery of remains by the government. For all of us, it was a lecture on a topic we never really considered. He spoke of how his directorate locates remains and then how they recover and identify them. He eloquently traced the history of how the US Army does it from the Civil War through today. He then spoke of the controversies that surround the identification of remains today and the challenges of performing that important task. After lunch we went to the National Archives to receive our official badges that allow us access to the WWII documents stored at a secure location in Maryland. We will actually go there on Wednesday to do in-depth research on our ‘adopted’ soldier, LT Jacobson. The second part of the afternoon was a behind the scenes tour of the Smithsonian archives. We were able to see up close many artifacts that have never and likely will never be seen by the general public (see photos for examples of what we were able to see). It was a really great tour that few Americans ever get to experience. After dinner at the Smithsonian dining facility, we went to the IMAX at the Air and Space Museum to see the new 3D D-Day movie narrated by Tom Brokaw. It was a great 45-minute summary of the Normandy invasion. If you have not seen it, it is playing up in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center. We then returned to campus to help the teens get ready for the event at the White House. Our group has been invited to the White House and each teen will present a short summary of the research they have done on a fallen soldier from D-Day. President Obama is scheduled to be there, but that may change due to the current crisis in Iraq. We will just keep our fingers crossed. In any case, it will something for Taylor to say that she gave a presentation at the White House. Thought for the Day: “Every soldier deserves the right to go home when the war is over.” – Mr. Joshua Fennel.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 04:01:55 +0000
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