Seeing a place, being there, geographically, shapes how I learn and I wanted to be able to
offer that to my students.
After spending almost a year reading about these events, and then the chance to stand here and
to think about the scale of it.
You're right here in the thick of things. What you studied at home, you're actually seeing and doing
and working with when you touch down in Europe.
You can study about it and think about it,
but there's nothing like walking in it.
You know what it really looks like in the hedgerows and what it looks like on the beaches of Normandy and to be
able to describe that, in a personal way, to my students
For years we've spent our lives dedicated to these
things, to studying the past,
and this gives us a chance to actually go and live it.
This experience has changed me by making me think more about the individual stories
of war time and not just the big picture.
It's one thing to learn about how many soldiers died and
what beach or what campaign, but it's
another thing to come to know one of those individuals.
There is a family, there's heartache, there's emotions behind every single one of those numbers.
Making this war personal is the only way
we make it real for kids.
Being able to use the men buried in the ABMC
cemeteries, from our home towns, gives us an
incredible tool for teaching.
To get students to think critically and conduct research, and that really helps the students
think more deeply about the topic.
It really opens your eyes and refreshes, you know,
first of all your love of history because you're doing
real research.
Finding documents, spending time looking at the little details to find family members
to look in places that are not obvious for information.
And second of all, you're doing meaningful research.
And I feel that as American citizens it's our
responsibility to kind of tell those stories.
These are the voices of World War II that we don't often hear, these are the voices
that were quieted way too early.
This is the first person I know to ever die in a war
and I really feel like I know him and I know his story.
You make a connection and you get very possessive with your individual and then it becomes a point where
you feel like you don't want to let that person down.
More than anything, I want you to know that you made a difference, you mattered.
You are not forgotten. You will never be forgotten.
It has been my absolute honor to get to know you.
You're going to be creating something meaningful, not just for your classroom or other teachers to use,
but also for the families of these men and women who sacrificed their lives.
I think many of these families must have feared that their loved ones would be forgotten
and I think we have a unique opportunity to bring these amazing places to life and to help them understand
that these aren't just cemeteries or graveyards. That these are places that are alive, that these are
places of history. And they're places to learn from.
