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As you all know I’m a big history fan and love the idea of not only reading about it, but experiencing it as well by visiting historical places. It’s a great way for us to connect with the important past of our great nation and is an excellent way to make history fun and interesting for the kids, too 🙂 So I was very pleased to have Mark Bielski with Stephen Ambrose Tours on the show last week. Check out their website and you’ll see what I’m talking about when it comes to the fun and importance of walking in the footsteps of America’s heroes. I spoke with Mark about history, the value of getting immersed in history like that and the impact this sort of adventure has on those who participate. Enjoy!
I remember as a young boy my father taking us to Gettysburg. I distinctly felt a quiet reserve as if I was on hallowed ground. I could not articule that at the time but there is an atmosphere of honor at places like this. My sons and I felt the same years later when I took them to the Little Big Horn Battlefield. It is worth going out of your way to visit places like this.
Twenty years ago the Disney people wanted to build a Civil War history theme/amusement park near the National Manassas Battlefield Park in Virginia. Locals and historians strongly opposed the project and it was dropped due to huge public opinion against it. Not only would it have brought increased traffic and development, it would have destroyed the contemplative atmosphere of the battlefields that you experienced at Gettysburg. I visited Gettysburg as a kid with my family, and later the battlefields of Manassas (called the First and Second Battles of Bull Run by the South), and also felt the quiet reserve of being on hallowed ground. I hope that for present and future generations, the current emphasis on having to be entertained on vacation doesn’t keep them from visiting and enjoying places of real history.
One of the reasons I love Route 66. I like history, too. A mile east of where I live is a road called “Indian Meridian”. It was one of lines settlers lined up on during the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. Where Indian Meridian crosses Route 66, just about 4 miles southeast of me, is a restaurant called, appropriately, The Boundary. They have barbecue ribs that are to die for!
Historic downtown Guthrie, OK, just northwest of me, is the largest single area on the National Registry of Historic Places. In the cemetery there, one of the more interesting graves is Elmer McCurdy’s. Who is he, you wonder? Look him up, he has an interesting story to tell, if he could remember any of it!
I left part of this comment on the podcast post and hope you don’t mind that I repeat it here.
I took their D-Day to the Rhine tour and would highly recommend it. I had an uncle who was killed in Normandy and our excellent guide, Ron Drez (mentioned by Mark), went out of his way to add a couple of quick stops to the tour that related to my uncle’s death. I still get emotional thinking about the beautiful ceremony our group held at Normandy Cemetery at the grave of a paratrooper killed the night before the beach invasion. His elderly widow was with us. She was a newlywed when he left for Europe and had never seen his grave. Hearing the National Anthem followed by Taps in his honor, and surrounded by the graves of all the other heroes, was one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
Stephen Ambrose tours will take you to both well-known sites and those that are off the beaten path, but are no less important to the history of WWII. To actually stand in a foxhole dug in a forest during the Battle of the Bulge was quite moving. I am well-read in WWII history and was amazed at the places we visited that were not officially listed on the tour. It was these surprise visits to rare, hard to find sites that really brought the war home to me of the experiences of the average GI like my father.
Fell asleep in school when history explained, now I cant get enough of it. I too visited Gettysburg,Pearl Harbor and West Point on the Hudson where Benedict Arnold betrayed General Washington. I live in “History’s Hometown ” Auburn, NY where Harriet Tubman lived working the Underground Railroad. Also the home of the Secretary of State for Abraham Lincoln, William Seward ,the purchaser of Alaska.In the Fort Hill cemetary,lie the remains of Miles Keough,one of the soldiers that died with Custer at Little Big Horn. Also buried in another cemetary is a correctional officer killed during the attack by the National Guards at Attica prison.Auburn was the first Prison to use the electric chair. Remember the movie “A place in the sun” with Elizebeth Taylor and Monty Clift ? He played the real life killer from the book by Theodore Dreiser “An American Tragedy” that was zapped here in that chair. I could go on.
Forgot to say that 2 weeks before she resigned as Gov, Sarah Palin came here for Founders Day to honor W.Seward and signed a bill as one of her last acts as Gov.It was the best day ever.
Washington Post Style article on 2 Italian sisters who at ages 4 and 6 were taken to Birkenau in 1944. They survived 10 months there before liberation. They think that they survived because they believe that the Nazis believed that they were twins, and twins were desired for possible experiments. Their young male cousin did not survive the war. When a man came in asking, children who want to see their parents step forward, he did. The girls did not move because they had been warned. Those who stepped forward including their cousin were taken to Germany where they were infected with TB as part of a ‘medical experiment’. To cover up their actions, the Nazis hanged the children in a school basement a few weeks before war’s end. The article discusses the girls, now 70s, accompanying an Italian train excursion to Auschwitz to teach today’s children about the Holocaust.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sisters-live-to-tell-their-holocaust-story/2013/04/07/5c2d24a2-9aea-11e2-9bda-edd1a7fb557d_story.html