Major William Wells

Earlier this month, I travelled down to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with two of our instructors, Dr. John Votaw and Dr. John Broom to prepare for an upcoming MMH program that we will be conducting a year from now. In the past couple of years, we’ve done two staff rides to Fredericksburg, to examine the Overland Campaign of the American Civil War.

A staff ride, briefly, is a sort of glorified fieldtrip that has been utilized by the armed forces for over a hundred years. Students travel to the battlefield, with a small amount of background preparation, and examine, from where events happened, how any given battle progressed, and look to the reasons for why battlefield commanders made the decisions that they do. The level of information that students can glean from this type of experiential learning – something, I might add, that was encouraged by Norwich University’s founder, Alden Partridge – is immense, and I found that when I participated on one in Normandy, France, I gained a far better feel for just how and why the actions of the invasion happened the way that they did.

Travelling to Gettysburg will likely do all of this for those who participate. I myself learned much about the battlefield and the events that happened in July of 1863. For me, the Civil War was a major point in U.S. History, and I could tell you about the reasons behind the conflict, but very little about the actual battle, or its significance in the larger context of the war. Happily, this trip cured me of my ignorance, and brought about a couple of other surprises.

On Confederate Avenue, near Big Round Top, on our first day, we stopped at a statue of a man with a drawn sword – not a necessarily uncommon sight on a battlefield littered with memorials – memorializing the exploits of the First Regiment of the Vermont Cavalry. The man is Major William Wells, who participated in an ill-advised cavalry charge. After returning home, and looking over the pictures that I took, I began to look more into this one man.

The charge occurred on the 3rd of July, the last day of the battle, in the early evening. Wells was in command of the 2nd Battalion, and rode alongside General Farnsworth through the woods, where they made contact with the 4th Alabama Infantry and the 9th Georgia Infantry, and when they turned, ran into the 15th Alabama infantry. During the fighting that ensured, General Farnsworth was shot and killed, leaving Wells in charge of the battalion. He led his men to safety, and for his heroic actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Wells would continue to serve in the Union army throughout the rest of the war. Later that month, he was wounded at Boonsboro, Maryland, and again in September at Culpeper Courthouse in Virginia. By 1864, he was in command of the First Vermont Cavalry, and participated in the Shenandoah Valley campaign, and would eventually take command of the brigade and 3rd Division, and stayed with the Army until 1866, when he returned back to Vermont. Over the course of the Civil War, he had managed a successful career within the military, beginning as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1861 when the FVC was raised, to the rank of Major by the time of the Gettysburg battle, and was commissioned as a Brigadier General in May of 1865, based on recommendations from General Sheridan and General Custer.

The story doesn’t end there, however. Upon his return to Vermont, Wells forged a successful business career in the state, managing a pharmaceutical company until 1872, when he was appointed customs collector for the state of Vermont by President Grant, and would return to his company, Wells, Richardson & Co. in 1885, as well as becoming the president of several other companies, such as the Burlington Trust Company, Burlington Gas Light Company and the Board of Trade for the city. He also became the director of the Rutland Railroad and the Champlain Transportation Company.

From 1865, he served in the state legislature, representing his hometown of Waterbury, and in 1866, he was elected by that body to serve as Vermont’s adjunct and inspector general for the next 13 years. As Adjunct General, on July 13th, 1871, Wells travelled to Northfield Vermont, where he inspected the Corps of Cadets at 3 pm for their commencement. While this is the only reference that I could find of Well’s interactions with the University, I suspect, that given his position and military record, as well as his proximity to the school, that he would have visited on other occasions as well. In 1892, Wells passed away suddenly at the age of 54, and was eulogized by the Burlington Free Press as “one of [Burlington's] foremost citizens and the State of Vermont one its worthiest, best known and universally respected citizens.”

In 1913, with money raised by the state of Vermont, a monument to the First Vermont Cavalry, with Wells at the top, located near where his unit operated during the battle. With veterans of the battle present, the statue was dedicated on July 3rd, with the dedication read by Horatio Nelson Jackson (the first man to cross the United States in a car, and Well’s son-in-law), and various dignitaries spoke throughout the day. A year later, a sister statue of Wells was unveiled in Burlington, Vermont’s Battery Park to similar fanfare.

This is a bit of a divergence from Gettysburg, but I was interested to find the connection to the State of Vermont, and to some extent, to Norwich University through this one, remarkable figure in Vermont history. While Norwich University certainly played its part in the battle (there is a book, called By The Blood Of Our Alumni: Norwich University Citizen Soldiers In The Army Of The Potomac, 1861-1865, by Robert Poirier, which deals extensively with that subject), it is the smaller stories that require a bit of digging that makes the connection all the more worthwhile. Undoubtably, Wells will be something to stop at a year from now, when we travel to the battlefields once again.

Sources: David F. Cross, A Tale of Two Statues: The William Wells Status at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Burlington, Vermont. Vermont History 73 (Winter Spring 2005), William A. Ellis, Norwich University, 1819-1911: Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll Of Honor, V. 1., Google Books, accessed August 24, 2009, Page 170, William Wells Statue Inscription, Gettysburg, PA.

Residency: Part 2

Norwich’s MMH Residency has since come and gone, and I have to say that it was one of the best weeks that I’ve had in a long while. This week was particularly special to me, because I had started as an administrator with the groups that were graduating this summer, while I walked with them for graduation. I and my March 2007 cohort mates were the accelerated residency group, who essentially graduate early, while still working on our final capstone projects.

The first three days were largely consumed by lectures from the six instructors that attended along with us. This was a change from last year, because we devided to forgo the presentations that used to make up residency in years past. I went to a couple facinating ones about maneuver warfare doctrine, methodology and a rather scary presentation on PhD studies and that entire process.

Seeing and meeting all of my students have really given me some insight into the student side of things. So frequently do I speak with students on the telephone or via e-mail, but rarely (only one of the students who was here was one that I’d met earlier) in person. This provided a fantastic look at how they react to the institution as a whole, while giving me a much better apreciation for what they go through. It wasn’t a huge revelation, but a timely and helpful one.

For much of the week, I met up with my cohort mates for dinner and for recreation afterwards. Someone had the brilliant idea to bring along my copy of RISK, which resulted in a couple of really fun nights of beer and board games. While that was fun, it was a great time that I’ll remember for a while, and it helped me meet a bunch of people who I’ll likely keep in touch with for a long time. I certainly hope so, because there were some very good minds there, and I hope that we can accomplish something in the world with that.

Graduating was weird, because I’ve worked with this class since I started, and still have more work to do. When I went up on stage, I got a big cheer from my classmates, something that I wasn’t expecting at all, and it threw me for a moment. For all of my worries, problems and depression over the past year, I seem to have been doing a good job, and that has cheered me considerably – while I see the mistakes and problems on my end administratively, I’ve been praised for the work that I do. I realized at that moment that I’ve been far too hard on myself. It’s doubtful that anything is going to change, but it’s nice to know that my work has really affected and helped people in this job. I just hope that I can continue to do so.

Leaving everyone was bittersweet. The week went by far too fast, and in my experience with groups, you will never get the same groups together at any one time like this. Real life takes people away, and moments such as this are singular occurances, which makes them all the more better.

Residency: Part 1

This week, I’m finally at my residency for my Master’s degree. In March of 2008, I started taking the degree through Norwich University’s School of Graduate Studies, working towards a degree in Military History. It’s an online school, and every day, I worked with fellow classmates, but through Internet discussion boards and through papers that I wrote and submitted online to my instructors. It’s certainly a different way of learning, but I’ve taken to it.

For every degree, we require that students come on campus, and this week’s our week. I’m finally able to meet my fellow classmates, whom I’ve worked with for 18 months now. Beyond that, I’m finally meeting students whom I’ve worked with when I first started the program. I’ve talked with them since day 1 of the degree, and come Friday, I’ll be walking with them across the stage. I still have some work to do after this residency (I’m an accelerated student) but the bulk of the program is over. I don’t have classwork, just research, which is exciting.

Residency is proving to be a highly productive and entertaining week here. While in years past, we’ve required students to present their capstone, we’ve moved away from that this year, in favor of faculty presentations which seems to be pretty popular with the students. Overall, students are enjoying the time, and meeting up with my fellow classmates has been extremely fun.

The first two days have been made up of presentations – I’ve sat in on ones about military doctrine, the Battle of Kursk, the IRA and the Easter Rising, Roger’s Rangers and Historiography and one on how to write and eventually publish a capstone paper. The rest of the week will be some rehersals for Graduation and our Academic Hooding Ceremony, then Graduation on Friday morning. I’m quite looking forward to that.

RIP: 2nd Lieutenant Stephanie Hurley

I just received the following e-mail from Norwich earlier today:

Norwich University has learned that Second Lieutenant Stephanie Hurley ’07 died on Tuesday, July 29 after a brief illness. Stephanie was the captain of the Norwich Women’s Rugby team and graduated summa cum laude. She was currently a US Army Second Lieutenant with the Texas Army National Guard. The thoughts and prayers of the Norwich community go out to Stephanie’s family and friends during this difficult time.

This comes as a shock – Stephanie was one of my classmates at Norwich, a fellow geology or environmental science major, if memory serves. We had field geology together, maybe a couple of other classes as well over the four years that I was there, and we were in the same graduating class last May. I remember her as someone who was very quite and reserved, but always very polite and nice to speak with.

I’ve known this was coming – things happen after college – people get hit by cars, killed by criminals, commit suicide or leave this world somehow. Going to a military college, I’ve had classes with a number of students who are now off in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I know that there’s a very good chance that some of my friends might never leave that country. Stephanie apparently died of an rapid illness, which also came as a bit of a surprise – I would have thought that one of my former classmates would have been killed in action.

It’s scary how one’s perception of your time changes as you get older. A couple of weeks ago, the 501st Legion lost one of our members, Nick Ring, to complications from a routine surgery. There was a huge outpouring of support and grief from the rest of the Legion. The scary thing is that he was only twenty-two. From my high school class, we’ve already lost at least one person, that I’ve heard of, due to a drug overdose.

I’d like to go to the visiting hours for Stephanie, but I just won’t be able to, given that it’s mid-week and almost four hours away from me. I’ve already done a long trip this past weekend, and the way gas prices are at the moment, it’s just not possible. My sincere condolences go out to Stephanie’s family – she will be missed for the bright and kind person I remember her as.

Making the Grade

Through my work here at Norwich, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the online education field, as I am both a participant through the Masters in Military History program, but also working as an administrator for it. Something interesting came across my desk a while ago, a request for interview subjects from MOAA (Military Officer’s Association of America), who wanted to speak with some of the officers in our program, to see what their perspective on the online program was. So, I e-mailed everyone and we got a good response. The article just went live, and it’s interesting to see not only Norwich University well represented, but I was alluded to by one of my classmates. Here’s the article:

Making the Grade
By Latayne C. Scott — July 24, 2008 More than two-thirds of American colleges and universities now offer online courses, and information provided by eLearners.com shows 62 percent of employers say the value of an online degree from an accredited school is equal to — or superior to — a traditional college degree.

Why? Because, although “cyberstudy” offers flexibility, it demonstrates initiative and great self-discipline.

Advantage No. 1: Convenience

Juggling work, military commitments, family, and a side career of breeding Tennessee Walking horses hasn’t kept Lt. Col. Nancy Cantrell, USAR, from pursuing a degree online. “You can fit your studies into your schedule and . . . you can study from home,” says Cantrell, who is pursuing a master’s in military history (MMH) from Norwich University in Vermont.

Also pursuing the same degree from Norwich is Maj. Craig Grosenheider, USA, who says, “I did not have time to attend night school — and was not interested in the programs or schools available locally anyway. Moving was not an option, and I was not able to take advantage of a fully funded graduate school program during my time on active duty. The online program offered the degree I wanted, from an institution I respected, in a format I could manage — easy decision.”

But not all active duty military officers who pursue online degrees focus on military subjects. Capt. David Leaumont, USAF, says he “didn’t want to just fill the ‘master’s’ check box in my [personal readiness folder].” Leaumont hopes to write, teach, and work in a church after retirement. But his local seminary required full-day attendance three days a week. “That’s an impossibility for [an Air Force] officer,” says Leaumont. “The only way I could get a master’s from a seminary program was to go online.”

Advantage No. 2: The world as your campus

Lt. Col. Donald R. Emerson, ARNG, is seeking a master’s degree in terrorism and counterterrorism at exclusively online Henley-Putnam University. He cites the institution’s accreditation and military tuition assistance requirements, but the clincher was he could study anywhere. “I travel too much to attend a traditional program,” says Emerson. Others, such as Norwich student Maj. William O’Brien, USA, laud the rich, diverse nature of online classmates. “We have students in California, Ireland, and, in my case, Iraq,” says O’Brien. “Some have civilian backgrounds, some military, some academic, and we even have a B-movie actor that has decided it’s time for a change of pace.”

Advantage No. 3: Cyberspace camaraderie

Lt. Lawrence “Mac” McKeough, USN-Ret., just completed his master’s in public administration through American Military University. W.Va. As a retired officer, he found the interaction with active duty students stimulating — as does Cantrell, who shares photographs with fellow students to reduce the impersonal nature of cyberspace.

Capt. Daniel J. Kull, USA, wanted to study at a traditional campus but knew he would be deployed to Iraq for 15 months and wanted to “get a jump on a master’s degree.” Kull found fellowship with a Norwich MMH major and fellow movie buff. “During our online discussions, we often drop movie quotes into our academic postings,” says Kull. “It is amusing when I am reading something he wrote, and I recognize a line from ‘The Big Lebowski’ or something.”

Advantage No. 4: Benefits beyond the diploma

Getting a degree online requires some proficiency with computer technology. That will pay off in other ways, says Norwich student Capt. David Weber, USA. “An understanding of other applications of technology directly helps . . . [because of] the rate at which technology is advancing in the military.” Another Norwich MMH student, Capt. Christopher Center, USA, has reaped a different kind of bonus from his studies. Armor magazine published an article based on one of the papers Center wrote in his first seminar online.

Most people take an online degree with the idea of qualifying themselves for something in the future. But Norwich MMH student Vice Adm. James A. Sagerholm, USN-Ret., isn’t looking toward a future in the Navy. At 80 years old, he finds it “amusing and ironic” that one of his classmates, a 2002 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., is exactly 50 years behind his own graduating class. After graduating, this articulate man would like to write a book, possibly about Navy founders John Barry and President John Adams.

If the convenience of a work-at-your-own-pace online college education sounds appealing, keep in mind there also are a few aspects of an online education some might consider disadvantages.

Disadvantage No. 1: The nature of online coursework

Some students find online coursework more strenuous than a traditional course.

“You’ve either read the material and done the work, or you haven’t. This is especially evident due to the necessity of written communication,” says O’Brien. “You can’t roll the dice and hope you’re not called on in class, and you can’t tank an assignment and figure that you’ll make it up in class participation.”

Though O’Brien cites the difficulty of absorbing academic materials when he reads late at night, daytime study can bring another kind of difficulty, according to Sgt. 1st Class Douglas Urbanek, USA-Ret., who currently works at U.S. European Command Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, while pursuing a Norwich MMH. “I spend about 20 hours on the weekend doing course work, and that’s hard to do when the sun is shining outside.”

Disadvantage No. 2: Impersonality

One issue that is difficult for many online students is they usually never get to meet their professor face-to-face. McKeough cites the disappointment he felt after working hard on a paper and getting it back with the sum total feedback “agro-terrorism is all about money.”

And sometimes the increased interaction with other students can be unpleasant, as Lt. Cmdr. Stanford Fisher III, USN, observed when “liberal-minded” students without military experience voiced “heated” opinions in discussion rooms. In addition, Fisher notes — as do almost all online students — the insufficiency of “cyberdiscussions” to convey a tone of voice or other nonverbal clues.

Disadvantage No. 3: Juggling priorities and finances

The difficulty of integrating a college education into an already full life is extremely difficult for most — and impossible for some. Boatswain Mate 1st Class Keith W. Underhill, USN-Ret., graduated with a bachelor’s in business management from what he characterizes as the “military-friendly” University of Phoenix — but only after cancelling his online classes. “It was not my style of learning,” he says, and was happy to learn the university offered on-campus classes in his area.

“Some instructors require you to work in teams, which is very difficult when you have people all over the world in different time zones,” says Capt. Sandra Davis, USAF, who is nonetheless enthusiastic about her master’s in management and leadership from Webster University. Davis also notes her online studies are more expensive than a brick-and-mortar facility, and “you probably won’t have the opportunity to sell books back at the end of the semester.”

Disadvantage No. 4: The world as your campus

Finally, for all its flexibilities, online education has its challenges abroad.

1st Lt. Richard Ingleby, USA, recalls “I was writing a response to a discussion question, and I swear, every … bug in Afghanistan decided that night to fly into my face or computer screen, since it was pretty much the only light on in the whole FOB [forward operating base],” says Ingleby. “I just remember thinking how this was definitely not your normal educational setting back at the university library.”

After weighing the advantages and disadvantages, is an online education right for you?

Article Source

It’s a decent enough article – I did pick out a couple of spelling mistakes, which is odd, but for the most part, it’s largely on track with it’s view of advantages and criticisms. The only thing that I really took issue with was the jab at liberal students without military experience – I don’t see this as a drawback, and while the online format does eliminate verbal and visual cues, there are ways around it. Liberal opinions aren’t wrong opinions, any more than conservative ones. It’s just different. This is one reason why I don’t like tying myself down to any one belief, because it’s incredibly limiting.

RIP – Arthur Harringon

I just received an e-letter from Norwich from the alumni office, something that they’ve recently started doing. While looking through the obituary list, I came across one name – Arthur Harrington – that I recognized.

Some of you might remember that I did my final thesis on Norwich alumni who fought at Normandy, France during D-Day. Of the 43 people that I was able to find, I was only able to speak with one, Arthur Harrington, who landed on Omaha Beach on D+0 H + 6.

He was assigned to the 5th Special Engineering Brigade, where he was tasked with linking up communications between the 1st Infantry Division and the 29th Infantry division. He landed on Easy One, under enemy fire.

D-Day was the only time that Harrington took fire. He spent the rest of the war on the beaches, tasked to another special communications group that helped coordinate communications between the various branches (Army, Army Air Corp, Navy and Coast Guard), while helping set up a port at Normandy to supply the soldiers fighting further inland.

Prior to the invasion, he was involved with the planning of Overlord by analyzing reconnaissance photographs to help place equipment. Just before that, he was stationed in Iceland.

When I spoke with him a little under a year ago, he was happy to speak with me about my work, and about his role in the invasion. He told me then that he would not likely live to see the school again, and sent me a package of some papers relating to D-Day for the library’s special collections. I mailed him a copy of my final paper, and never heard back from him again. I gathered that he was fairly active where he lived in North Carolina. He was 89 years old.

His official obituary can be found here.

Back in the USA

So, I’m back – currently in New Hampshire, with my Aunt and Uncle, who picked me up from the airport. Yesterday was incredibly long and with probably two of the worst flights that I’ve ever had. They were smooth, which was nice, but both legs of my trip home had one thing in common: screaming infants. Three of them. One on the transatlantic flight over, and another two on the two hour flight up. I don’t know what it is, biology maybe, that makes a squalling baby such a horrible thing, but it’s a horrible thing on a flight because of the limited space. The two in the last flight were also RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Fortunately, I had my CD player and Victoria’s Wars to keep my sanity to some degree.
So, I’m back in New England, trying to readjust me biological clock, which is currently telling me that it’s around 2 in the afternoon, even though it’s really 9 in the morning. Aunt Jan and Uncle Tom are currently out to a meeting with a doctor (Uncle Tom had surgery a while back) and after they get back, I’ll head out and go home.

The trip was amazing, and it hasn’t really struck me until now how fast it went by. I have to say thank you so much to people who sheltered me and were able to meet up with me during the trip (And I feel really bad that I didn’t get to see everyone), but because of people’s help, I was able to survive in London and eat at the same time, so I’m thankful for that. Meeting up with people, such as Sara and Naomi was also great, because I haven’t seen them in a long time, and it was good to have someone to talk to, or bug, depending on the hour.

Normandy was surreal. Seeing the battlefields with two Army Generals is probably the best way to see the battlefields, given their background, and we got such a detailed look at the battlefields, that I think I need to go and throw out my paper and re-write the thing. As it is, it needs significantly more research time and writing time, because I’m still finding mistakes in it. (I did get an A for it though, which is a plus). Hell, while I was out there I was able to do some work on it – I found the resting places of four of my guys, as well as their service numbers, exact units and date of death, something that I either didn’t have or was incorrect. Yeah, I’m a geek like that.
Actually seeing Normandy put a huge spin on how I perceived the battle – the books and things that I’ve read don’t really tell the entire story – we looked at terrain and things like that at points, something that I’d never really thought of. And, Normandy is HUGE. Hundreds of square miles, all one fairly continuous battlefield. Most people think of just the landing beaches as where the fighting was – that was just the first day. And, like when I went and visited the battlefields at Marathon, Greece, I got chills thinking about what had transpired there, although in this case, there’s still a huge active local memory for the event. People still remember the battle there, and appreciate us for it. There’s still the bunkers, the beaches, bullet and bomb craters, and I’m sure if you really really looked, you’d find some of the equipment that the allies lost in the airborne drops (they lost almost 90% of the soldier’s leg bags due to prop-blast), bullets, guns and I’m sure that there’s still a couple bodies kicking around somewhere that were just never recovered. The battle here isn’t nearly as abstract as the one in Marathon.

Seeing London again was nice, but a little empty. I didn’t have anything official to do there, like school or work, or a larger circle of friends to hang out with. But, it was nice seeing everything again, the accents, the To Let signs, everything about London just came right back to me, and I was comfortable there. I got to see a bunch of familiar things, like the Imperial War Museum (I did end up finding and splurging on a book on the Falklands War) and some new things, like the Geological Society of London and got to see an original print of William Smith’s first Geological map, which was something like 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. And lots of walking and bus riding.

All in all, it was a very very fun trip. I’ll have good memories from it, but I am happy to be back home (sorta – soon) and get back on with work here.

London / France Update

So, as I’ve mentioned, I’m in London. I went abroad last Wednesday from Manchester NH, and arrived sometime mid afternoon here. I went and found my hostel, and walked around London for a little while, refinding old places. Later in the afternoon, another Norwich alum, Naomi arrived at Waterloo – we were staying at the same hostel, and I was able to lead her to it. We walked around, found dinner and hung out for a little while. Thursday was fun – We went out to Oxford in the morning and walked around the place for a little while, went to most of the cool sites, although we didn’t go into any of the schools, but we did end up at the Eagle and Child, then went back home to London. From there, we discovered that the musical Spamalot was playing in the West End, and went out to go see that – absolutely fantastic and brilliant musical. Anyone who’s a fan of the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail would absolutely love it – it’s a fantastic adaptation, and they’ve thrown in a huge number of references to Flying Circus and Life of Brian. I can’t remember when I laughed so hard. Highly recommended for everyone. The next day, we went out and met up with Sara, who’s still in London. We also met up with her friend Rob, who I met last time I was here. We walked around for the rest of the day, got lunch and dinner and generally caught up and chatted. It was a lot of fun. I brought my suitcase over to her apartment, which is waay out in Zone 3. It’s quite a ride out. The next morning, I left Naomi, who was to leave later in the week and went out to Heathrow, where I flew to Paris. It was a quick flight, and I arrived in Charles De Gaulle somewhat disoriented, but I found my hotel within an hour or so, where I met up with the Norwich people who were already there. I met up with Vice President Whaley and President Schneider, as well as several trustees, General Sullivan and General Nelson, which was cool. We had dinner there, which was fantastic, and then went to bed. The next morning, we were up early, got on the bus and picked out a couple more people, and then drove out to Normandy, via Caen. We stopped along the way at Pegasus Bridge, which was the first structure in Normandy to be liberated by the allied forces, the 6th British Airborne Company C. The store was a literal shrine to the American and British soldiers. I, along with General Sullivan, General Nelson, President Schneider and V. President Whaley had dinner in the back room, where I suspect that few tourists see. Afterwards, we walked around the area, saw where the three gliders of the Company C landed, as well as looked over the bridge. It was a cool walkaround. Our next stop was a windshield survey of the British and Canadian beaches and the tactical significance of their actions. We got back on the bus and went out to our hotel, which was really really high quality place. We had a seminar where we went over the overal world situations of World War 2, and I presented on half of my paper. We had dinner there and went to bed. The next morning (Tuesday), we set out for the vicinity of Utah Beach. While we were driving around, we spent a lot of time on tactics and the overall stratigy of the invasion and how all the elements fit in together. We first looked over the airborne forces and how they operated and the conditions in which they landed. We stopped by St Mere Eglis, which was captured on the first day, and where a lot of the American soldiers assembled. From there, we went to Utah Beach, where we went over the beaches. Utah was the easier of the two beaches, and we discussed that. There were a couple of bunkers on site, and we looked over those. We then got lunch and move on to Point Du Hoc, the site where the Rangers landed and took a German Battery that could fire down on the beaches and Allied forces. There are still a number of bunkers and craters still there, although the actual memorial is off limits due to cliff erosion. We returned to the hotel, dinner, etc, and the next day, we set out for Omaha Beach. We arrived there and talked about the people who landed there, and how it differed from Utah beach (2000 people killed as opposed to 200). We visited several sites there. I was presented a book by the entire group, who’d signed it, in thanks for my work on the Norwich people. I talked a bit about the Norwich alumni there, and we visited the American cemetary overlooking the beach. It was a horrible sight. I was a little disgusted by the people there – taking video and tons of photographs, generally acting like tourists. It seemed disrespectful. I found the resting places of four Norwich people (None were at that site). We then went on to lunch at Arromannes, where we got lunch and I sent off my postcards to the US (Various people should be getting them in a couple days). I went out to the cliffs and looked at the rocks and did some drawings, and we returned back to the hotel where we took a rest and had our last seminar, where we discussed the trip and how it can be used in the future. It was an interesting talk, and we took another break, packed and went to our last dinner there. Yesterday morning, we drove back to Paris, where I got my flight. I’d hoped to meet up with Linh, but we didn’t get around to meeting up like we’d hoped (Sorry!). I flew back to London, where I dropped by bags off and bought a couple of books, found a park and read for a while, then met up with Sara, got dinner and went up to her place, where I am right now. I called home, Sarah and work (to brag), and passed out. I’m taking a break today, just staying in, resting from all the walking around that I’ve been doing, and catching up on TV show finales that I missed. LOST was mindblowing, and Heroes (which I’m watching now) is just jaw dropping. Many thanks to Sara for letting me stay here, because it’s a much appreciated break and good to talk with people that I know. Pictures can be seen in the links below. Now, for the rest of Heroes and lunch.

Album 1

Album 2

Done!

As of 11:27 this morning, my Normandy paper is done. Finished. End of story, for me anyway. Rounding out at 46 pages, including the bibliography, order of battle appendix, list of soldiers appendix and the full body of the paper, I have three copies, neatly stapled, sitting in a folder in front of me, looking nice, crisp and ready to turn in to my professor, President Schneider and Captain Arthur Harrington, whom I interviewed. The very last thing that I’m waiting for is a map that will be printed out in the next fifteen or so minutes that shows the Normandy coastline, the beaches and the relative locations and landing times of each of the soldiers that I researched.

But… it’s over. It’s kind of hard to believe that, when I was sitting in class, wracked with a cold, raising my hand to take the D-Day project when it was first announced. Then came the hours in the library, searching for references, then up to Jackman hall to look at old records, Archives and Special Collections and finding more things, beginning to type up things, making connections between people and places, cross-referencing sources, beginning the writing, scanning pictures, putting together a powerpoint (which I need to revise for a presentation in two weeks), going over the paper with Professor Lord, and now, it’s sitting here, a finished product, as good as I can make it (And there’s probably some more that can be done to it, including research on a couple of people who I just added in at the last minute), but that’s it for me.

If people are interested, I’ve been thinking of serializing the paper, section by section up here, if people are interested. Because dammit, if I put all this work into it, I get to be a little vain and want to show it off a bit.

I liked doing this paper. I loved the research, finding things and putting together all the pieces into this larger picture. That’s what I want to do with my life. I got such a rush being able to put together something new, something that has never been researched like this, and I’m realising that there’s a whole lot more that I could do with this project. I could expand it to further battles beyond D-Day for Norwich alumni, such as St. Lo, the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market-Garden, the Invasion of North Africa and Italy, and the list goes on and on. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to do something more like this.

Toy Soldiers Hope For Better Years

So, I turned in my paper last week, the last draft, for review, and had my first presentation in front of the class on the topic. It went over well, aside from the fact that I went over my time by 20 minutes. People seemed to like it, a couple of my classmates told me that it was very interesting, and hopefully, I got good marks from them on my presentation.
Earlier today, I had a meeting with my professor on my draft – he’s been spending the last couple of days working them all over (Fortunently, there’s only eight of us) and he gave mine back, covered in red ink. It wasn’t as bad as I thought that it might be, mostly mechanical stuff and citations, which I really need to redo. But he liked the paper, thought that I did good research, and I have two weeks to finish working that up. I’m going through it now, getting all the easier things to correct. So, it’s going along a lot easier than I thought that it would.

Now that a bulk of the work is done, I can resume normal school work, stuff that I’ve kind of pushed aside for a while – back math homework and an english paper that I have to get done. I’d rather just avoid it.

Picked up a couple of books, the first called Miles from Nowhere, from the Northfield Bookstore, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s latest, Children of Hurin, which is really good, but I need to really concentrate reading it, because otherwise, I end up missing tons of things. That was a complete impulse buy, last night at work, mainly because it was 40% off, more than my employee discount, and mainly because it’s so shiny.

I also helped out at school with Jr. Ring, which in my four years at Norwich, I’ve never actually been to, (Celebration 3, London and the girl being out of state all reasons why I’ve never bothered to go), setting up the stage for the band that came in, and tearing it down again after the show. Band was Armor For Sleep, some emo-rock group that wasn’t that good. They did sound a whole lot less whiny in person, but they’re nobody that I’d ever recommend to anyone. I only caught the last twenty or so minutes of their set. The stage was more interesting.

Now, I’m going to procrastinate further by watching Long Way Round or reading Hurin. Hm…