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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:06:02 - 00:00:26:20
Speaker 1
Welcome to the show where we talk service, sacrifice and story connecting you to the past and the most interesting people in the field of commemoration and veteran causes. I am Ryan along with co-host Matt, and we are from Memory Anchor, a company dedicated to changing the way the world remembers today. I'm really excited to have Alan with us.
00:00:26:21 - 00:00:40:06
Speaker 1
Alan is the manager of interpretation and education at Springfield Armory and Coltsville. Really happy to have you here, Alan. Just even in the preamble, talking with you before the show, learning so much. And we had to go, let's hit that record button.
00:00:40:07 - 00:00:56:07
Speaker 2
I'm really looking forward to talking with both of you today. He's had a great career working at some landmark organizations career in the US Army as well, but we'd love to take you back as far as you'd like to go. What inspired you to get into this really interesting career that you developed? I've always been.
00:00:56:09 - 00:01:41:01
Speaker 3
Interested in and, you know, history, particularly when we're two history. I was born on June 6th, 1967, you know, 23 years after, you know, the D-Day landings. Where's my father? He was born in Belgium, and he grew up in occupied France. I learned a lot about his own personal experiences in a living under German occupation. And when I got my master's degree from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette in European and public history back in 2000, when I wrote my master's thesis, it was focusing on the D-Day landings from the civilian perspective, and I got to interview my father when I was doing a thesis, which was really great.
00:01:41:01 - 00:02:07:08
Speaker 3
And, you know, just getting to listen to some of his stories. He remembered what it was like seeing British troops, you know, coming from Dunkirk, being marched through the streets of Lille. You know, he was eight years old when the Germans invaded France, and he was 13 when the Americans liberated his city. So he was he was old enough to remember, you know, what that was like.
00:02:07:11 - 00:02:32:01
Speaker 3
And he told me stories about having Jewish friends disappear from the school, you know, one day to the next. Now, he told me he was ten years old, the first time he ever saw a dead body. And, you know, he was going he was on his way to school, and he passed this body in the street, and he realized that it was like his next door neighbor and, you know, who had broken curfew and the Germans had just left his body out there to be able to have that kind of first person perspective.
00:02:32:02 - 00:02:55:05
Speaker 3
It gave my own experience, you know, with World War Two history. You know, personal background that not a lot of people get to have. And I was, I lived in France for a few years when I was a kid with my parents. I lived in France the first time in southern France, near Marseille, when I was nine years old, and I went to French school and learned how to speak French there.
00:02:55:05 - 00:03:21:15
Speaker 3
And I remember even as a kid, like, this is 1976, and I remember very well like what France still felt like, you know, like it was still, you know, recovering from the war in a living in France in the 1970s. You felt like it was it was still a part of everybody's life, you know, I mean, one of my one of my good friends at school, his father had been captured by the Germans during World War two, you know, and he still had his uniform and helmet and all this kind of stuff.
00:03:21:15 - 00:03:42:02
Speaker 3
So for me, you know, starting World War Two was always something that was still very much a part of people's lives. And of course, having the perspective of when I was writing a master's thesis, realizing that I was only born in a 23 years after D-Day as a kid, do you think 23 years is a long time? I mean, I'm going to be 58 this year, so 23 years is nothing for me.
00:03:42:03 - 00:03:48:06
Speaker 3
Like I said, you know, all those things kind of combined to make, you know, World War Two or something. That's always fascinated me.
00:03:48:09 - 00:04:11:01
Speaker 1
Going back and just talking about the experiences of your dad. I know a lot of historians, and typically they'll write about big figures like Churchill, Eisenhower, you know, these different individuals and their perspective. But some of the most interesting books I've been seeing are often from, like the soldiers perspectives, the civilians too, because there was this whole experience there.
00:04:11:02 - 00:04:19:11
Speaker 1
You ended up having a career working in France. Is there anything in particular that, like, through your career, really stood out to you or any lessons or stories?
00:04:19:12 - 00:04:41:01
Speaker 3
Well, my father going back to him briefly, he ended up joining the the Belgian army. He fought in Korea. He was in the in the Belgian army for five years. And then I was in the American army for five years after nine over 11. That's kind of how I ended up in the American Battle Monuments Commission. I was actually deployed to Iraq, and I was reading in New York Times article about this agency that was looking for people to come work for them.
00:04:41:01 - 00:04:59:03
Speaker 3
I was like, you know, I already have a master's degree at that point. And I spoke French and I thought, this is going to be a great opportunity. And so I ended up, you know, getting picked up by them. Back in 2007, I started working at Brittany American Cemetery in April of 2007. Like I said, I lived in France for a few years as a kid.
00:04:59:03 - 00:05:19:12
Speaker 3
I had my stories from my father's past, and so I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what my experiences were going to be like working for the American Bottom Monuments Commission, but they didn't really prepare me for really for what I went through there. Like literally the first weekend that I worked on myself, 5:00 on a Sunday afternoon, I was taking the flag down.
00:05:19:13 - 00:05:35:17
Speaker 3
This elderly French woman walked up to me. You know, she asked me if she could kiss the flag. And, you know, I was kind of taken aback. I mean, that's not the typical sort of request that you get, especially in the United States. People don't say, hey, can I kiss the flag? It's not really a thing. And then, you know, but of course you can.
00:05:35:17 - 00:06:00:16
Speaker 3
And then she kissed the flag, and then she was crying. And then I was like, you know, what were your experiences like in the war? And she said she had lived in that area as a child, and GIS had saved her and her family from from the Germans. And so, you know, she said she could say thank you every day for the rest of her life to America, but it would never be enough, you know, for her, it was a very liberation was very personal thing.
00:06:00:16 - 00:06:28:14
Speaker 3
It wasn't something esoteric. It wasn't something even like, you know, Americans like my my mom was, you know, I mean, she was born in 1932. She she was living in the United States. You know, she lived through World War Two. She had families and friends that worked in war factories. And she remembered Pearl Harbor. And but she was very far removed, you know, so to to to be able to meet this French woman whose, you know, life was literally saved by American GIS that were buried in that cemetery.
00:06:28:14 - 00:06:43:14
Speaker 3
I mean, doesn't get really more emotional than that. You know, I've shared that story with lots of American visitors, actually, one time in Saint James, I had this guy show up in this American guy. It was a terrorist. And he got really angry. He was like, why is the cemetery here? These guys should be buried back in America.
00:06:43:15 - 00:07:00:00
Speaker 3
They're buried in foreign soil. And this isn't right. Let me go through and kind of share some stories with you. And at the end of the visit, the guy was like, yeah, you know, I'm glad this is here. You know, those guys are buried in French soil. They're honored every day in ways that that they're just ignored here in their own country.
00:07:00:01 - 00:07:24:22
Speaker 3
You know, I mean, people just kind of. You pass military cemetery. I mean, I do it every day myself. I pass military cemeteries every day without really thinking about those guys buried in women buried in those cemeteries. But the people in France and Belgium and Manila across the world, those men and women are genuine heroes. It's not just the older generation, you know, I've met lots of little kids and their parents who honor those men and women every day.
00:07:24:23 - 00:07:28:08
Speaker 3
You know, for them, it's like I said, it's not esoteric. It's very personal.
00:07:28:08 - 00:07:36:16
Speaker 1
In your time working in the cemetery space and with veterans and such like that. What do you think is some of the most important things we need to preserve?
00:07:36:16 - 00:07:58:00
Speaker 3
One of the more interesting groups of people I met when I was at Normandy, that a former professor from George Washington University, he was active at the time. Now he's he's since retired. Thomas Long, he started a program at George Washington University back in 2013. It was like a semester long course, and he would have students that took the class.
00:07:58:00 - 00:08:37:02
Speaker 3
They would do research on a soldier from their hometown. At the end of the course, they they actually went out to the cemetery and in France and read their eulogies next to the cross. These students are roughly the same age as the men and women buried in that cemetery. And when you are able to learn about someone's personal story and, you know, think about what they gave up, these these students were all profoundly affected by that to be able to, you know, have those stories so that when someone goes to a military cemetery in particular, they're not just looking at a name they actually, you know, are able to know more about.
00:08:37:03 - 00:08:50:12
Speaker 3
You know, what that what that person, who that person was and what they lost, the way that affected their family and all those things. Because when you look at it like that, you really realize that the ripple effect. But the other thing is that you just you see them as a human being and not just a.
00:08:50:12 - 00:09:01:02
Speaker 2
Name with the APM. See, you were at are done at Brittany and Normandy. Was there any special common ground that you found with some of the burials at any of those three cemeteries?
00:09:01:03 - 00:09:25:00
Speaker 3
There was a guy from this town and called Plainville, Connecticut. It's got an important Mannix and is buried at Normandy. I remember walking past his grave. I mean, almost every every day when I was kind of doing my rounds. And he was kind of interesting character. He was from the small town in Connecticut. He graduated in 1940, would have been 43.
00:09:25:00 - 00:09:45:22
Speaker 3
And like he had a full scholarship to Parsons. You know, he started going to school at Parsons in New York City. And for somebody from a small town in Connecticut. It was a big deal. You know, he ended up being killed and and Normandy that the beginning of Operation Overlord. I go by his house almost every day. His his apartment is still there in this town.
00:09:45:23 - 00:10:07:22
Speaker 3
You know, there's a there's an award named for him at his old high school, you know, but nobody knows really much about him. So, you know, he's just, you know, one of many ordinary people who gave their lives that, you know, it's important to remember at Normandy, there's there was two members of the postal battalion, the six eight, I believe, is the name.
00:10:07:22 - 00:10:28:10
Speaker 3
So two African-American women buried at Normandy. They were coming over to spend the weekend at the beach in the war was just kind of winding down and then ended up being killed in a traffic accident. They're both buried there. There was another female who was worked as a donut dolly. And, you know, she's been a lot of her time in England.
00:10:28:10 - 00:10:46:05
Speaker 3
And then she ended up being killed in a plane crash, and she's buried at that cemetery. There's so many, you know, just fascinating stories of individuals buried there. And one particular story kind of sticks out to me. Back when I was in Saint James in Britain American Cemetery, I met a woman who was visiting her father's grave for the first time.
00:10:46:06 - 00:11:05:21
Speaker 3
She grew up without never knowing her father. Her father died when she was young. She was raised by a stepfather who didn't want, like he basically told his wife to pretend that they were never married. Stepdaughter basically had to pretend like her birth father didn't exist because the stepfather was jealous of him. You know, she never really knew much about her father.
00:11:05:22 - 00:11:25:11
Speaker 3
She worked out in California, and like the first day where she worked at this company, she became friends with the woman. And they'd been friends for 30 years. And then this woman had found out that her father was in an air crew, B-17 aircrew that was shot down over France. And she had just she had seen something on PBS about a documentary about War two.
00:11:25:12 - 00:11:46:12
Speaker 3
And and she just started getting interested. So she started doing some research. These two women, they didn't realize it, but both their fathers were in the same B-17. They were in the same aircraft, and they're actually buried side by side in Saint James. Strange coincidences, you know. So. So when she discovered that, you know, that that their fathers had been in the same air crew, she's like, I want to go visit my dad's.
00:11:46:14 - 00:11:52:14
Speaker 2
When you're walking, you know, does it feel a little bit different when you're walking past a medic, just kind of given your service?
00:11:52:14 - 00:12:11:01
Speaker 3
When I was in Saint James, I became good friends with a former Army medic from the same unit that I was in. So I was in the sixth of the 32nd Field Artillery Battalion. I had fought still my friend John Bruni, he was a medic, and the second on the 32nd would was attached to the first Infantry Division.
00:12:11:01 - 00:12:31:02
Speaker 3
He landed on Omaha Beach and he fought his way across France. And he was French-Canadian originally, so he knew the French well. He ended up marrying a local girl in Saint James, and they stayed and had a family there, and he died in 2009. He would come visit me every, every day. He lived pretty close to the cemetery.
00:12:31:02 - 00:12:53:07
Speaker 3
So he had worked for the American Bottom Monuments Commission in 1950s and 60s. So being able to to have that kind of, kind of shared experience, I'm not going to pretend that what I saw in Iraq is the same thing as what John is on Maha beach, obviously, but still to to have some, you know, shared experiences and particularly with the same unit is pretty interesting people.
00:12:53:08 - 00:12:54:09
Speaker 3
I had that connection with him.
00:12:54:10 - 00:13:19:14
Speaker 1
I think that connection is important in my experience working with some more War two vets and and having them open up and talk to me. I'm not a combat veteran myself. I did have the uniform for close to a decade, and some of that understanding makes it comfortable. There's a veteran, Ernie. He fought in World War Two and through Italy, and I'm always cautious on my questions I'd asked.
00:13:19:15 - 00:13:43:22
Speaker 1
He was captured at a set of Monte Cassino and spent the war until he was released and asked him, what was the first thing you did when you got back? And I loved his answer because, you know, I'm Ryan. I went out and I bought myself a really nice suit. It just said a lot about him. So just to your point, though, it's just I think having put on the uniform and it is created many situations where some of these veterans were willing to share a little bit about that experience.
00:13:43:22 - 00:13:50:23
Speaker 1
And I'm really honored by that, because we get to go forward and and share that respectfully and hold their memory.
00:13:51:00 - 00:14:12:16
Speaker 3
I met an old crusty infantrymen from the 29th Division. He was visiting for the first time with his daughter. So over at Saint James, there's a chapel and it's got like, I don't know, 50 step steps. And, you know, this guy was in his late 80s, early 90s at the time. First I remember him shaking my hand and he was a little fire plug of a guy.
00:14:12:16 - 00:14:29:01
Speaker 3
He was probably like, I mean, I'm 511. He's probably five five. I was asking him like, what was it like your experiences during the war? Because same deal. Like he landed on the beach upon his way across Europe. He's like, yeah. He's like, I never, you know, never got wounded, you know, never got hurt, never got injured, nothing like that.
00:14:29:01 - 00:14:45:00
Speaker 3
And he's like, and then I, after the war, became a cabbie in Philly and he's like, I was stabbed twice and shot twice. It was interesting because same deal. Like he was sharing stories with me that his daughter had never heard. She was actually getting kind of annoyed. She was like, why are you telling his stories to this stranger?
00:14:45:01 - 00:15:02:23
Speaker 3
And you can't tell him to me? And with war stories, it gets easier, I guess the more generations you have. I mean, with your own family, your wife and your kids, you don't want to share the stuff, but with the grandkids gets a little easier. And sometimes with total strangers, you know, the stuff can come out. And we walk through the cemetery and he pointed out some guys that he knew.
00:15:03:00 - 00:15:29:06
Speaker 3
He was like, oh yeah, that guy was a replacement. And like he said, you know, I feel bad because we treated him pretty badly, you know? But the problem was, is every time you lose one of your buddies, it's like this deep psychic wounds. When the replacements came in, it was easier. Just you didn't want to even, like, bond with them and then have them get killed because this guy, the guy that he was showing me the replacement, he was like, this guy literally got killed two feet away from me when he got killed.
00:15:29:06 - 00:15:45:15
Speaker 3
And I will say, like he was getting kind of philosophical with me saying, you know, like, you know, I've thought long and hard. It's like, why did I deserve to live? And these guys didn't? It's kind of like in Saving Private Ryan, you know, he said, like he felt like he had an obligation to live, make something of his life because these guys didn't.
00:15:45:15 - 00:15:47:14
Speaker 2
Do that. Sounds like a pilgrimage. Really.
00:15:47:16 - 00:15:55:00
Speaker 3
Like I promised these guys I would, you know, visit their graves. And he's like, you know, I'm at the end of my life. So I wanted to come out here and make sure I do this before.
00:15:55:01 - 00:15:59:14
Speaker 2
I did. There's a real reason to how these locations are sited, isn't there?
00:15:59:15 - 00:16:17:08
Speaker 3
So General Pershing, he was the one that was in charge. He was the chairman of the first chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission. And interestingly, their focus when they built the War One cemeteries, he was like, I want them to be sited on the battlefields. The problem that they had back then is that these battlefields were very remote.
00:16:17:08 - 00:16:38:05
Speaker 3
So the War one cemetery is really are in very remote locations because they're actually sited on the battlefield. So in World War Two, John Marshall, he was the chairman at that point. And so the American Monuments Commission decided that we want these sites to be more accessible. So in that that case, the only one that's on actual battlefield or close to one is Normandy American Cemetery.
00:16:38:06 - 00:17:05:12
Speaker 3
All the rest of them, they put them in locations that were more accessible to roads. And in the case of Arden, they chose that location because it was centrally located and the Army Identification Laboratory was there. It was in a location that was relatively accessible to Germany and to Poland and Czechoslovakia. They were concerned about repatriating and identifying the remains of aviators.
00:17:05:12 - 00:17:25:23
Speaker 3
So at that particular cemetery, they've got the most number of aviators buried in a cemetery. So interesting because they've got the remains of a World War One soldier buried there. They've got soldiers that were just from all over the place, as I mentioned to to both of you earlier, they've got the remains of the first American killed in World War Two, Edward.
00:17:26:01 - 00:17:48:01
Speaker 3
He's buried there. Actually, the Germans had his remains at first. He was disinterred numerous times before he ended up at Arden. He was killed in at the during the raid back in 1942. So he was buried in German cemetery. And then they they brought him to the American cemetery, a temporary American cemetery. And he was put there for a few months.
00:17:48:01 - 00:18:08:21
Speaker 3
Then they disinterred him because they wanted to do a positive identification on his remains. So they brought him out to Belgium at Arden American Cemetery. And at that point, that's when they asked his family if they wanted him repatriated back to the States, are buried in Belgium, and they said they wanted him buried. There are a number of guys who were also killed during the raid that are buried there as well.
00:18:08:23 - 00:18:19:06
Speaker 1
You've been around this field and you continue to work in this field. I'm kind of curious on what your thoughts on are for the future of commemoration and what's important.
00:18:19:06 - 00:18:41:14
Speaker 3
When I was working with the American Battle, money was commissioned, and then I ended up spending four and a half years with the National Cemetery Administration with the VA, which is basically the A, B, C version stateside. Using technology for commemoration is is something that is for me, it's really being able to share those stories with, with visitors who can't get there in person.
00:18:41:14 - 00:19:10:01
Speaker 3
It's been a problem really, since the cemeteries were first, you know, the idea that being buried in Europe, it was it was not easy for the families to come out there and visit. So I think, you know, being able to use technology and particularly what memory anchors do, I think is really important and not just for families, but also, you know, for future of history to be able to have an understanding that these, you know, these are just names on headstones, these these are people, you know, real people with real lives.
00:19:10:01 - 00:19:13:20
Speaker 3
I think, you know, being able to use technology to share those stories is very important.
00:19:13:20 - 00:19:19:11
Speaker 1
Anything in the future coming or anything you would like to point our listeners attention to? Before we wrap.
00:19:19:11 - 00:19:40:07
Speaker 3
Up, when I was at Normandy, I had the privilege of getting to visit a lot of Commonwealth cemeteries and the areas near the Canadian and British landing beaches. I always, inevitably, every time, you know, I work for ABC or fly back from DC to Paris, I always meet somebody on the plane and I told them that I worked at Normandy.
00:19:40:07 - 00:20:02:03
Speaker 3
And it's obviously, you know, for people that are that can only go if they only have the time or the money to be able to go to one cemetery. I understand why they want to go to Normandy. There are so many great cemeteries across Europe, like there's Saran that's, you know, right side of Paris. I mean, that's that was one of the first American cemeteries.
00:20:02:04 - 00:20:25:07
Speaker 3
And you've got a lot of civilians buried there who died there during the pandemic. They're fascinating stories at all of them. And obviously, I know a lot of Marines who have been out to like Bella Wood. They've gone out to a lot of the war once. Cemeteries are particularly fascinating, and I always encourage people that are interested. I say, you know, if you're going to go, you should definitely in a visit to cemetery, but make sure you visit a War one, Cemetery two.
00:20:25:08 - 00:20:42:21
Speaker 3
But World War Two Cemetery is whenever you would see like concrete, like at Normandy is a lot of concrete. You know, the war one cemetery, you're going to see marble, you're going to see frescoes, stained glass. America said, you know, this is our one chance to to make a good impression, you know, in Europe, not even realizing, course, that they'd be back.
00:20:42:22 - 00:21:03:22
Speaker 3
No, no, not too many years later, from an architectural point of view, to be able to go visit some of the world one sites because they are less visited because of their locations. But people are really enthralled and amazed when they see these. These are masterworks in architecture. The people who who designed these cemeteries were the cream of the crop, the sculptures.
00:21:03:23 - 00:21:17:15
Speaker 3
You know, who built the statues and the cemeteries. These were, you know, the foremost architects and sculptures of their generations. And so I would say, if you ever get a chance. Make sure to visit not just the World War Two sites with the one sites.
00:21:17:17 - 00:21:38:00
Speaker 1
Thank you again so much for joining us today and just hearing your perspective on commemoration, your experiences and working in some of these amazing places. And then, of course, the stories that you you accumulated in that time.
00:21:38:02 - 00:21:51:02
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Wreaths Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:21:51:04 - 00:21:52:05
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.