Among My Souvenirs

“I’m writing you to catch you up on places I’ve been…” Thank you, John Mayer, for some appropriate words as I launch into my first blog, composing while surrounded by 15 years of World War II.

The other night I sat in front of this same keyboard thumbing through the back pages of a book I picked up the year after a certain life-changing movie’s release, Now You Know – Reactions After Seeing Saving Private Ryan. I remember filling in some of those back-page blank lines having just read Audie Murphy’s unblinking World War II memoir To Hell and Back.

“I find myself thinking of how all the different people I’ve read about were all pieces in the same big puzzle—Murphy; Capa; the people in hiding; the citizen soldiers lost to time and the infantrymen who lived to tell…who didn’t get the awards although they were also dedicated and brave. Somehow they all fit together, like a bunch of puzzle pieces.”

Although clueless of it while penning my “Journal of Personal Reactions,” I would soon lose my heart and begin devoting a great deal of my time to my adopted home area’s Gold Star citizen soldiers, sailors, and airmen, sentimentally swayed by Tom Hanks’ death on a movie screen and spurred by his quotation for a public service campaign in the wake of Saving Private Ryan: 

“Dying for freedom isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Being forgotten is.”

I had discovered my calling.

The 15-plus years I now have to look back upon have brought countless adventures—close to home (by car, the Internet, or within the pages of books), out of state, and, still amazing to me no matter how many times I travel, in countries where My Boys fought—and fell—overseas.

Tour Guide & World War II Detective at work, Normandy, France 2006.

Whether a given day finds me feeling like a World War II Detective (as a local TV news reporter once titled me) or a Mad Scientist (when I am best left alone to brood), I am fortunate to have a great support team behind me in the form of family (especially my husband Jim) and a circle of friends (not always visible to me but seemingly always keeping tabs on my efforts).

Fortunately, for many years, the Koskis’ leading man, in terms of European, guided World War II Tours, has been the very special Antonio Cisneros of Alpventures. A maestro of meal and accommodations selection, this unique friend and collaborator continues to say yes to my itineraries, chauffeuring and tromping around Europe with me and Jim, bemused as we leave no chocolate bar unturned, steadfast in helping us retrace final footsteps and visit final resting places of local boys who didn’t make it home.

In large part, Tony helped to launch us into exploring our favorite European countries -- with their ties to so many of our local World War II fallen -- on our own.

Over a farewell tipple in the Munich area in September of this year, while still spared the dreaded off-season Eastern to Pacific time-zone difference, I heard my otherwise long-distance friend suggesting that I become a blogger. Doing so would not only assure I would continue writing about my mission, but I would be better able to share my experiences with an interested public, i.e. YOU.    

Now, while I don’t see myself being a “Tony the Tour Guide” any time soon (too many unsolved mysteries are still rolling around in my introverted researcher’s head), I ultimately decided to pursue this blogging thing, knowing that I can post as little or as often as time allows or as inspiration deems appropriate.

                          

So, yes, with or without John Mayer, I am in the mood to lose my way with words. I hereby invite you to gather up a World War II Gold Star list of your own, grab your cyber-suitcase (no passports necessary for the fleeting figures we’ll be chasing), and we’ll see what adventures future sets of paragraphs bring.

P.S. Although I decline consideration for being a Tour Guide for now, I do make a pretty nifty Navigator.
 

Surprise meeting with Tony the Tour Guide (center) in Bayeux (Normandy), France, 2012.