As the nation approaches her 250th birthday, it’s natural to begin planning for 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 the many incredibly powerful stories in the WWII section under the 20th century tab.
Stories 250 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 2013 during the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, I was aboard a Tall Ship during a reenactment of the Battle of Lake Erie from the very spot where 200 years before Commodore Oliver Perry defeated a squadron of British ships, the first time an entire British squadron had been defeated.
And in 2019 I was aboard a WWII C-47 flying in formation with other D-Day Squadron “Gooney Birds” over Connecticut just before the warbirds left for Normandy to celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. It was an unforgettable experience as I thought about the thousands of young paratroopers in C-47s minutes before the green light came on and they jumped into battle.
These are just a few examples of the front row seats I have had to this living history.
Our goals for Stories 250 are to: 1) keep this history alive, 3) be part of the solution to the current literacy crisis, and 2) support old fashioned yet never out-of-date primary source, nonpartisan journalism. Nothing artificial, always intelligent as I like to say!
Please join us on this exciting journey!
Judy Stanford Miller, M.Ed., M.A., Stories 250 editor
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