As the nation approaches her 250th birthday, it’s natural to begin planning the anniversary. I can honestly say I have been planning for it for many years. I have been deeply committed to telling the story of America by attending historic events, interviewing key people with a link to or expertise in that history, writing about the event’s history and producing multimedia to enhance the storytelling experience.
To the right is a picture of Fred Bahlau (1923-2014), a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne who jumped into Normandy on D-Day and participated in the Battle of the Bulge as part of his WWII service. He is holding his boots he wore throughout the war. I listened to him tell his story on Omaha Beach in 2009 during the 65th anniversary of D-Day and then interviewed him at his home in Michigan that fall. He is one of many incredibly powerful stories in the Stories250 People of WWII section.
Stories250 is divided into centuries. Did you know one of the first ships built for the U.S. Navy in the late 1700s, the USS Constitution, is docked in Boston Harbor and is the oldest, still operable ship in the world?
In 2014 during the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, I was aboard a tall ship during a reenactment of the Battle of Lake Erie during which Commodore Oliver Perry defeated a squadron of British ships, the first time a British squadron had been defeated.
Finally, in 2019, I was aboard a WWII C-47 flying in formation with other D-Day Squadron “Gooneybirds” over Connecticut just before the warbirds left for Normandy to celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
These are just a few examples of the front row seats I have had to honor American history. It’s been thrilling but not an easy ride though. I thought the natural audience for our original content, which promotes student motivation and literacy as well, would be K-12 schools but after years of outreach to schools, it was an incorrect assumption. We are persistent though as we seek to find an audience who cares about: 1) keeping this history alive, 3) being part of the solution to the literacy crisis facing our youth, and 2) supporting old fashioned but never out-of-date primary source journalism. Nothing artificial, just intelligent as I like to say!
Please join us on this journey!
Judy Stanford Miller, M.Ed., M.A., Stories250 editor
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