Indiana University
The Indiana University School of Journalism Ernie Pyle

Columns: In the footsteps of Ernie Pyle

The J460 Footsteps of Ernie Pyle class traveled to places the World War II correspondent made famous in his columns. They also wrote their own columns as the visited historical places and followed Pyle’s path.

Breaking down language barriers

By Kevin Pozzi
May 1, 2009
Bleary-eyed and hungry, our group boarded a ferry that would transport us from Portsmouth to Caen—a roughly five-hour journey across the breezy English Channel. As we sat down to a breakfast of chocolate croissants, fruit and cheese, a window facing the water displayed an evaporating English coast. Eventually it had fully disappeared, and with it, our last glimpse of an English-speaking country was finally gone.

Suddenly, we felt surrounded by signs, people and objects that we were completely unable to read. For the first time in my memory, I felt helpless and illiterate.

As we docked in Caen, it really became clear how big a barrier language can really be. Every interaction I would have for the next five days would most likely be a struggle—an unsuccessful attempt to connect on the distinctly human level of language. It brought on feelings of inferiority and weakness, a sense that I was simply unable to master the beautiful French language.

The culture shock only grew worse when we met our fluent tour guide, Helen Gosselin. An avid language enthusiast, Helen is fluent in six different languages—English, French, Polish, and Greek, to name a few. Why is it that so many Europeans are fluent in multiple languages? Helen had almost no trouble finding each and every word that she was attempting to say—even offering many opportunities for English humor. Here is someone who is able to joke in multiple tongues, whereas I was barely able to ask where the bathroom was located.

While many of the French we encountered did speak English, our failure to even try to speak their language resulted in a few cultural mishaps. When conversing with a French Metro employee about an erring subway pass, the man refused to speak with us in English until we first asked if he knew how to speak it. By immediately assuming that he spoke our language, we came across as arrogant and uncaring enough to even ask if he knew what we had been trying to say to him. Once again, we meant only to ask for assistance and instead learned a cultural lesson in communication and politeness.

The French, like Americans, are nationalistic people, proud of their culture, their language and their customs. Yet it didn’t seem at all out of place to see French children conversing in two or three different languages on the street, a truly “global” generation about to emerge. Sadly, to be described as “European” in America more often than not carries a negative context. We fear taxes, socialism and government influence, while simultaneously ignoring the truly multicultural benefits of a fluent and immersed populace.

It is time we as Americans demand that our children became bi- or even trilingual. A competitive global economy will leave American children behind if they are unable to communicate with other major players in the world.

By the end of our Parisian leg of the journey, many in our class had begun to pick up a few key phrases to help them get by. With time and more immersion into French culture, the vowel-laden language would have grown easier and easier to understand. Some left destined and inspired to pick up a new language upon returning home, while others were simply thrilled to arrive back in a country in which they felt comfortable enough with their own language.

All in all, septalingual guides like Helen and the impatient French Metro employee reinforced the notion that cultural diversity is more than just a worthy buzz word heard around campus. It took a journey across the ocean to realize how important our culturally different brothers and sisters are right here at home.

A safe haven

By Tara Titcombe
May 1, 2009
It’s a small, humble church compared to the cathedrals that tower over London. It’s set back along a quiet stone alley where the noise of traffic and rushing businessmen of nearby Fleet Street disappears.

The whitewashed walls on the outside of the cathedral lead up to the tiered tower. Legend has it that the tower was the inspiration for the wedding cake design. A baker would look out his window at the St. Bride’s tower and model his cakes on the view.

While the outside of the cathedral may seem modest, the inside is anything but. Black and white marble floors accompany chestnut pews, each with a dedication plaque nailed on its back. The ceiling is emphasized in gold outlines with a mural of angels and cherubs painted overhead.

But the real power of St. Bride’s comes in its significance. You see, St. Bride’s has been a parish church for journalists and printers for more than four centuries. Many of the plaques nailed to the pews are engraved with names of newspapers. The names of journalists who have lost their lives covering Iraq are on a memorial wall.

As I stood in front of the altar where lit candles, flowers and pictures of journalists who have lost their lives covering war were placed, I began to realize for the first time that journalists might need God. They might need someone watching out for them.

At St. Bride’s, the connection of church and press is simple. It’s not a complex, controversial issue. It’s just a realization that journalism can be a dangerous field and praying for the safety of members of the media is a recognition of the church. Plain and simple and comforting.

I joined my fellow aspiring journalists as we each sat in an empty pew, meditating. Some wrote, some prayed and some just sat there. Although I’m not positive what they were feeling, a sense of security and reassurance came upon me. I knew journalism is what I want to do. And if I ever get the opportunity to cover a war or conflict, I know I’ll have a haven at St. Bride’s. Perhaps there will even be a young student, aspiring to be a journalist, sitting in that same pew, saying a prayer for me like I did for all those writers in the photos on the altar.

Understanding Europe

By Thomas Wachtel
May 1, 2009
People in the United States are sheltered and tend not to know much about the world as a whole. As much as it pains me to say that, it’s the most crucial lesson that I learned while trekking across Europe, and the reason I plan to make sure to return.

I say this mainly because as an American who’d never left the country in any meaningful way before this week, the only knowledge that I had about Europe and the world writ large came from so-called “conventional wisdom” from people who most likely have never left the country or met anyone from outside the United States. The English have bad teeth. The French are rude. We think these things because they’re stereotypes and because we hear them often, but we don’t usually know.

But the interesting thing is that, like most other stereotypes, once you are exposed to people from Europe, you find that most of them are totally false. And that people are much more alike than we seem to think.

Take the British, for example. There are plenty of things that we seem to think about the British, but few that are true. Sure, some of them have bad teeth, but many of them have a better dental situation than I do myself, my three years of braces and perpetual servitude to the retainer notwithstanding. Of course many English are soccer fans, but there aren’t many more Chelsea jerseys in London than there are Yankee jerseys in the United States – in fact, I saw a lot of American baseball caps. Hooligans don’t overrun the city. And the food is fine.

When we crossed the English Channel, I was concerned that the stereotypes about the French would be true. But just like in London, they were proven to be wrong, for the most part. Nobody called me an American pig, and the people weren’t overly snooty or stuck-up or arrogant. Most people I met were amiable, though I couldn’t understand a word they said because I speak about six words of French. And when I tried to communicate with people, most of them tried to help me get my points across. Every conversation made me nervous, but for the most part, it was for no reason.

Part of the good reactions I got may have been because our group was in the process of trying to buck stereotypes as well. Around the world, we Americans have become known for many of the negative qualities we’ve assigned to others – arrogance, disdain for the cultures of others and general rudeness, among others. But we tried to respect the people we met, and we made honest efforts to conform to European culture as much as we cold. We kept mostly quiet on the subways, we tipped tour guides like we were on an expense account, and we even tried to speak French – and somehow managed not to sound like we were making fun of the language.

Honestly, all three groups acted relatively similarly. And that, I think, is the thing that people who never are exposed to other cultures miss. In traveling Europe, I realized for the first time just how similar people really are. Of course people jostle you in the street in London or Paris, but that happens in Chicago, too. If you walk into a Parisian store and try to talk to the owner in rapid English, he will probably not understand you, and he probably will get a bit angry, but the same would happen to a Spanish tourist in Manhattan. The French aren’t much more arrogant than the Americans, and the British don’t drink that much more than the Americans. We’re all people, and when treated with some effort toward respect, we all are pretty decent to be around.

A walk behind Mont-Saint-Michel

By Nathan Brown
May 1, 2009
Mont St. Michel rose like a mountain from the flat plains that surrounded it. We’d been traveling through small roads surrounded by small, run-down farms and fields that were broken up only by the occasional tree or bush line.
And then like a monument to human architectural achievement, Mont St. Michel stood in the far distance. It looked like something from a fairytale, like a castle out of a Disney movie.

Mont St. Michel first began as a monastery that was built on the tip of a mountain many hundreds of years ago. It slowly grew and overtook the entire mountain. A village surrounded the monastery on the sides and a large church was built on the top. From the peak of the mountain, on the balcony of the church, you can see for miles until the horizon just won’t allow it.

Another thing that makes Mont St. Michel so majestic and castle-like is that during high tide, the sea rushes in and surrounds the mountain, covering the adjacent fields with water. The only way to access the small village is by a land bridge. We arrived at low tide and after a tour of the church of Mont St. Michel, a friend and I decided to kick around a bit, do a little personal exploration.

The first thing that you might notice when you walk into Mont St. Michel is that this village is in layers, like a wedding cake, and the first layer is nothing but tourist traps and useless merchandise. Humungous swords, plastic shields, postcards and small toys are all available for buying in the multiple stores located next to each other.

The next thing you will notice is that there are a lot of overpriced restaurants there as well. We found the cheapest one and had some microwaved food and a cider. After resting our legs for a bit, we went outside the walls of Mont St. Michel to see what we would find.

We met two Frenchmen without shoes who looked as if they’d been hitchhiking for a while. We asked what they were doing. They had multiple cameras and telescopes on tripods and they seemed to be in a daze while looking out toward the surroundings.

“We’re bird watching,” the scruffier-looking of the two said.

“It’s a beautiful day for it,” I said.

“We’re tour guides waiting for a school group to arrive,” he said, without replying to my comment.

I looked down at his dirty, shoeless feet again and up towards his unshaven face and long hair. Huh, some tour guides you’d make, I thought to myself.

My friend and I trotted off and went behind Mont St. Michel. We walked and talked about nonsensical things, women and, somehow, we ended up on religion.

We were walking on the flat but rippled surface of the bottom of the lake that surrounds Mont St. Michel and walking towards nowhere really.

“An ironic place to be talking about religion,” my friend said.

And it was true. Two men, walking on a dry, dead lake bottom that stretched for who knows how far, talking about something that seemed as vast as the surface upon which they walked.

We stopped at the same time and were silent for a few moments. The wind howled around us and depending on which way you were turned, it was hard to hear for the wind was blowing in such strong gales.

We walked back to meet up once again with our tour group and head off towards Paris. I was left wishing to see more of the old town.

On Omaha Beach

By Mike Beam
May 1, 2009
Omaha Beach. A place that Americans young and old know of, even if they don’t know why. It was here where so many fell as the Allies fought to stop Hitler and his Nazi regime.

The opportunity came for me to visit the beach and I took it. As all American should if they get the chance.

Walking out to the water’s edge, I turned my back to the Channel. I tried to imagine what it was like for the soldiers as they came ashore on the morning of June 6, 1944.

But you can’t imagine.

The beach stretched for miles. A flat, vast expanse of bronze-colored sand as far as you could see. A mist or fog of some sort kept you from seeing too far. But it didn’t matter. It was the same for miles: a quiet desert on the sea.

On shore, I had already made it further than many of the soldiers did that day. Some had drowned as the rough seas sunk a number of the landing craft, leaving the foot soldiers without some badly needed tanks and their cover fire.

Those men who made it, sick from a long voyage across the channel, came out of the boats and into the water, the waves crashing all about them.

All the while the German automatic weapons and artillery fired down upon them from the bunkers in the cliffside. The guns were hard for the Allied ships to hit and so were free to shoot all along the beach at soldiers coming ashore.

Machine gun nests were hidden on the higher ground. Trenches connected them, protecting the Germans from fire.

And instead of the broad, flat terrain that I saw, the beach then had been scarred by a zigzagging ditch more than three men deep that Allied troops could not cross without filling it.

Wearing boots and my camera pack slung over my shoulder, I ran across the beach, up the stairs and onto the sidewalk, trying to feel like one of the few soldiers who made it through the lines of enemy fire. But I couldn’t.

Those men wore more than 150 pounds of gear and were soaking wet as they trudged out of the cold sea. Land mines dotted the beach, and other obstacles on the beachhead kept many from getting far. Left and right men were being brought to their knees by the gunfire, lying there dead or dying. The sight of the carnage alone could have made a man sick to his stomach.

Thank God I could only imagine it.

The beach has changed over the years. The bodies have been buried in war cemeteries, the land mines and beachhead obstacles destroyed, the guns and other evidence of the landings removed and placed in museums. A monument now stands on the beach to commemorate the D-Day landings here. They say the beachfront is more built up now, the coastal road longer, and villages nearby have grown in size. But it’s the same place. Omaha Beach is Omaha Beach.

And it always will be.


Missing a new love

By Nathan Brown
March 24, 2009
nathan brownA relationship with a city can be just as complicated and distressing as one with a significant other.

While leaving Paris, I felt I was leaving behind someone I cared deeply for, someone I knew I would not see again for a long time, but someone with whom I deeply enjoyed spending time.

Paris shone her bright lights on me night after night. The last night I was with her, I was sitting on the lawn in front of the Eifel Tower, enjoying a bottle of wine, some cheese and the company of the new friends from our class. At night, the tower periodically sparkled with the brilliance of diamonds or thousands of silent fire crackers. I was riveted — that is, until one of us made a joke and we laughed like madmen.

I remember toasting to the circle of new friends surrounding me. I toasted to the lovely city we would soon leave, the new friends we all had made and to many more lovely encounters to come between us. And I meant it.

The morning after was bittersweet. Many of us wanted to come back to Bloomington, leaving our lovely Paris behind, but some of us wanted to stay and leave a note for professor Johnson saying not to worry, but we wouldn’t be coming home with the group. I just wanted to pick up my bags and set off, see the rest of Paris or end up somewhere else and fall in love with a city all over again.

But we took off early in the morning and tried to catch up on sleep and fight off the time changes. I reflected on the previous night and some of the other memorable experiences I had.

I remembered raising a ruckus in an Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day when the crowd was elbow-to-elbow. I remembered hearing an angelic voice, which belonged to one of the young women in our group, singing in Mont-Saint-Michel. I remembered getting lost in London with Kevin, a new friend. And I remembered when my eyes welled up with tears when I saw the graves in the Normandy’s American Cemetery.

It was too good and I didn’t want it to end. On the shuttle from Indianapolis back to Bloomington, Kevin and I talked about making more trips this summer. My tired, foggy mind became intoxicated with thoughts of Highway 1 in California, sleeping in hostels along the way. We were dreamers and we were both in love with Paris.

Before stepping off the shuttle, professor Johnson stood and said there is always one thing he remembers about groups. What he would remember about us is that we were the group who brought sunshine into his life. We all laughed, but my spirits dropped a little. The weather in Europe was all blue skies and beautiful weather the whole time, but I was sad to know that it was over.

“How much should we tip him?” Kevin said, lightening the moment. We chuckled, but I knew that money wouldn’t be enough to pay for all the memories and friends I’d gained on this trip.

Touring parks and landmarks once at risk

By Mike Beam
March 21, 2009
mike beamThe morning off, the first action of the day came at the Mémorial de la Déportation. The site of a former morgue, the memorial is set behind the Cathédrale Notre Dame and along the River Seine. It commemorates more than 160,000 of the French who were sent to the Nazi concentration camps; only 3 percent of them made it back.

A guard stood outside to allow only a few visitors at a time. The narrow, stair-stepped entrance led from the commotion of Paris above down to a still place where one lost sight of the horizon and everything else. Except for the word “SILENCE” printed on a sign inside, the writing in the memorial’s crypt all was in French. Most of us couldn’t read any of it, but didn’t really need to. The feeling you got from being there was enough..

We continued our walking tour of storied sites of the city’s liberation in August 1944. You couldn’t tell that just two days ago, some 80,000 Parisians took to the streets in protest. They, like everyone else, haven’t been too happy with their country’s approach to the global economic woes. But on this sun-shining Saturday, mobs of Parisians came out for a different reason: to relax and enjoy the first full day of spring.

Through the Tuileries Garden, people were taking it easy. Picnickers chewed, smokers puffed, lovers smooched. A smiling mother chased her daughter, weaving along a line of trees, but not running so fast as to spoil the thrill by catching her. Too young to run, thumbsuckers, chauffeured in strollers, toured the park while elders with canes bending from the weight of dependence shuffled along. Bag-laden shoppers crunched by and Segway-bound tourists zipped along, clicking their digital cameras. Others saw fit to sit on a bench and just people watch.

Two boys played with their soccer ball against the raised wall at the edge of the garden. As expected, one overzealous kick sent the ball over the fence. The ball retrieved, they went back to hitting the ball at the wall until, you guessed it, the ball went sailing over the fence again. I didn’t stick around to see what they did next, but I’d bet you fistful of euros they didn’t learn their lesson yet.

It goes without saying, but the people of Paris seemed to enjoy their city. I can go a whole day in my neighborhood park at home without much more than the occasional dog walker passing through. Maybe it’s easier to enjoy the park when you’ve got the Louvre at one end, the Place de la Concorde and Champs-Élysées at the other, and the Eiffel Tower off in the distance.

But it could have been so much different. In the days leading up to the liberation of Paris, in the building across the street from the garden, a decision was made by German commander Dietrich von Choltitz not to lay waste to the city and its landmarks despite Hitler’s orders. It depends on whose version of the story you hear, but von Choltitz was either a humanitarian savior of the city or a ruthless general who had to be convinced not to destroy Paris by a Swedish diplomat and a French politician. It makes no difference.

But the city was spared the damage and Parisians today can enjoy their historical places like the Tuileries Garden.

Visiting with a legend, part II

By Tara Titcombe
March 20, 2009
tara titcombe While in Paris, our class was invited into the residence of photo editor John Morris. Although Morris is 90, one would never guess his age until he starts talking about his life through photographs.

Morris shared his life through a slideshow of historical photos. We sat in his living room facing a projector screen while he stood behind us, narrating. The point, he explained, was for us to focus on the photos and not him, one of the first signs of his humble nature.

The slideshow began with photos from World War I because that was the war he was “born under.” As the photos moved through historical events, so did Morris’ life stories. He began as an office boy for Life magazine. The Pearl Harbor attack happened on his 25th birthday. The magazine promoted him to foreign photo editor.

Although he moved from a variety of photo editing jobs, including working for The Washington Post, New York Times and National Geographic, he found his passion with Magnum Photography, where he worked alongside the late photojournalist Robert Capa.

Morris showed the photos of famous events during WWII and conflicts in Vietnam and Bosnia. In his spacious Paris apartment, his office taking up most of the space, he shared his thoughts about the photos, the events surrounding them and his personal experiences. He shared a tent with Ernie Pyle while covering WWII and said Pyle was nice to him. Morris also described the loss of his friend Capa, who was killed by a landmine in Japan after Morris gave him the assignment.

As Morris’ life revolves around photographs and can be told through pictures, he explained what he looks for in a photo: content, impact and composition. But most of all, he says, “The photograph has to say something.”

After some discussion about the direction of journalism and photojournalism, Morris gave perhaps the best advice. “Against my better judgment, I remain an eternal optimist.”


Visiting with a legend

By Lea Wilcox
March 20, 2009
lea wilcoxIt’s Friday, the second to last day, and we’re all tired and on the verge of sick, but we’re in Paris!

Despite the fact that anyone of us could drop any second now, we’re all so excited to be here that we forgo sleep, stay out until nearly morning to see the sights, wake up at 7 a.m., load up on orange juice and Airborne tablets at breakfast, then do it all over again.

This morning, we set out at 9 a.m. Our troops traipsed out of the All Seasons hotel following our fearless leader, whose name we’re all too lazy to say in full by now, so we just call him O.J. A few of us know enough French to order a coffee in one of the dozens of “patisseries” that line each street, but for the most part we’re completely lost for words, so we all stay close behind as we follow him through the busy Metro tunnels and narrow Parisian streets. Kelsey, Kate and I were left behind from the group in the tube in London (the doors close fast) and I don’t think my grandpa’s French lessons (cut the grass = mow de lawn) would be of much help if we were to get ourselves in the same situation again, so I don’t let him out of my sight.

We follow him to a quieter side of the city, into a sprawling courtyard surrounded by a beautiful 18th century building and wrought iron gates. “This is old Paris,” he tells us. The Paris that we see in movies and in paintings, with its charming facades of ornate wrought iron balconies and carved stone, hails from a later time, with most of its construction occurring through the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th. He tells us that the sprawling building that we’re looking at used to be a market. Now the courtyard is a park, and there are Parisians chatting on benches and young boys from a Jewish day school are playing some form of tag, hiding behind the trees and shooting at each other with imaginary guns before running up and tackling each other.

Soon, we are off to the home of John G. Morris, renowned war photographer and photo editor of just about every publication you’ve ever heard of, among them Life, Ladies Home Journal and the New York Times. A spry, white-haired man greets us and shakes our hands, telling us to make ourselves comfortable on any of the couches facing the wall where his Kodak projection machine shines. He does not wear glasses as he speaks to us, and he stands for nearly two hours while punching the buttons on his projection screen, showing us pictures of war and telling us detailed stories of his good friends Robert Capa, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, among others. John G. Morris is 90 years old.

He tells about his life in pictures, about the shock and grief he felt upon learning that his best friend, Robert Capa, had stepped on a landmine while covering the war in Korea; about staying in a tent during WWII with Ernie Pyle, who was quite nice to him; and about Ernest Hemingway’s funny girlfriend.

As we leave, O.J. tells us that he had not expected Morris to talk for so long. When he asks us if our loss of more free time was worth it, no one hesitates to say yes.

Reflections: History juxtaposed with modern times

By Kelsey Nash
March 19, 2009
Thirteen hundred and one years ago, a man named Aubert had a dream. Not your average vision of falling, flying or forgetting your clothes when entering a crowded room, but a dream in which he was approached by Saint Michael, who asked Aubert to honor him.

The man ignored the dream, dismissing it as a figment of his imagination, only to have it return twice. On the third night, Saint Michael, fed up with Aubert’s ignorance, put his ethereal fingertips to Aubert’s head and left a permanent hole. No doubt, as the legend goes, this spurred the bishop to action. Shortly after, Aubert began work on the abbey that became known as Mont-Saint-Michel.

A symbol of France, Mont-Saint-Michel stands today as an abbey, a former prison and an impressive example of a military fortress from the 100 Years’ War. Mont-Saint-Michel, which stands atop a sometimes island and is completely surrounded by water when the tide is high, is currently home to a mere 13 people – a mixture of monks and nuns resolved to withstand the clanging, chattering of tourists flowing up and down the single cobblestone road within the abbey’s walls.

From the one road that leads to the island, the abbey is a stunning and breathtaking sight; its gold statue of Saint Michael glistens brilliantly in the sun. Although Mont-Saint-Michel can be seen for miles, from a distance, it seems impossible that it would contain several modern souvenir shops and hamburger stands.

Inside the church at the top of the hill, however, the stale air still smacks of the eighth century, when its inhabitants were austere, red-meat-abstaining monks. During our tour of the church, we were led through a seemingly unending series of staircases, cloisters and crypts, and despite the sunny, warm day, most of the rooms were dank and dark inside their stone walls.

A particular room of interest held a large wooden wheel, which we were told was used when the abbey served as a prison during the time between the French Revolution and the mid-1800s. The wheel operated like a hamster wheel: two to six prisoners ran in place to raise a rope carrying supplies to the prison. These men could raise up to two tons of materials in a single day. Our guide explained that because the prisoners were given more food for energy when they ran the wheel, it was one of their favorite chores. Beside this old-time instrument of necessity, my classmates and I snapped myriad photos on our digital cameras, adjusting smaller wheels on our own necessary instruments.

With its mixture of modern and medieval, Mont-Saint-Michel exemplifies the peculiar nature of the places we’ve explored on this trip. Next to crumbling, centuries-old church facades lay paved parking lots lined with cars and charter buses. Across from charming French cottages on the route from Caen to Paris, one can find a row of supermarkets. This type of living history is new to me, something that I have not been privy to as an American who had never been outside of the country before this trip.

Strange as it seemed at first, I have found it both bizarre and beautiful. Its constant contradiction will be difficult to leave.

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A chill beyond weather

By Kathryn Middleton
March 18, 2009
The morning broke early after a night at the O’Donnell’s Pub celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with the cheapest pitchers we could afford. Our destination was due north, Pointe du Hoc. But the fast road, what Americans would call a highway, stretched for what seemed an eternity. The pavement was laid between what resembled trenches but really were old hedges…some exceptionally large. Our stomachs panged with fullness. Guzzling what we could this morning, we devoured our petit dejeuner knowing our next meal would be at a later time.

The sky was a clear canvas of blue over the fields of Normandy. The ground was sectioned into cows, horses, apples, ruffled dirt or the greenest grass I’ve seen since last spring. We arrived at Pointe du Hoc to enter a humid cloud of methanous gas. The surrounding fields had all been naturally fertilized. We were anxious for the ocean’s sweet breeze and the remains of German fortifications bombed by our ancestors.

The chill followed us the entire time and continued as we held the sands of Omaha Beach within our hands. We bused onward to the 9,387 graves at the American Cemetery. We are young, but in the presence of the thousands of dead who were once youthful, we fell in silence. We were left to the sound of tour guide Helen and to the perpetual hum of the ocean.

We mourned good and long today as we stopped in Arromanche and Bayeux and the British Memorial. The chills never stopped. My spine has yet to surrender to rest and warmth.

She moaned and roared a haunting tune,
As my feet sunk deep in the rose-gold sand,
And my being was as empty and humbled,
As her shells that laid glistening in my hand.

The coo of her song ever lulling,
Accompanied by choirs of seagulls culling,
Her breath a mystic potion beguiling my senses,
Chills my face and spine in foreign pretenses.

Exposing the lacy brine of her grey taffeta skirts,
She tempts her suitors still,
As the fog that is her eyes is thick with the souls
She has swallowed; broken alreqdy by man’s will.

Grass still strung in dew over the crypts of her dancing card,
Like brilliant diamonds, she had her guests attire match her own,
Although for where her suitors were suited with soil and Earth,
She was draped in in deep waves sown and youth’s flightful mirth.

(Editor’s note: Kate Middleton wrote the poem above after visiting the cemetery. "It is what I felt as I walked the hallowed ground of these historic sites," she says. "It was really over whelming and poems are what I do.")

Crossings

By Katherine Myrick
March 17, 2009

kate myrickAs we left London’s St. Giles Hotel this morning, the air was quiet and so was the group, mostly because the few brief hours of sleep last night left us less than chipper at 4:30 a.m., but partly because we were leaving a place most of us had grown to love over the past three days. London was an exciting time during our trip. It was filled with stories as well as many firsts for many people — first adventure into a foreign city, first time to see Buckingham Palace, first time to taste a steak pie. So as we drove out of our first city, we each reflected on the experience thus far.

Before we dozed off to catch another few precious hours of sleep before arriving in Portsmouth to catch our ferry to France, professor Johnson asked each us of to reflect on another scenario. Although he admitted it was a stretch, he asked us to imagine we were soldiers about to embark on a much different trip across the English Channel. He explained the route we would be taking would be similar to the one taken by the soldiers during the invasion at Normandy, when England, the United States and Canada joined forces to take back the beaches from Hitler.

I thought about this question a lot during our six-hour ferry ride. As we watched the last bit of Great Britain disappear beyond the horizon, I compared how I was feeling at that moment to how the soldiers, or even Ernie Pyle, felt during their voyage. Although I was sad to leave a place that I had so quickly fallen in love with, I was also excited for the new adventures that we would have in France. Considering the group we have assembled, I can guarantee you more stories will unfold in the coming days.

The soldiers who crossed the English Channel, however, were probably not thinking about the things I thought about today. Maybe they thought about the adventure that was ahead of them, or maybe they thought about the struggle that surely awaited them. Maybe they thought about their families and whether they would return home to them. Maybe they hoped to emerge a hero, or maybe they just hoped to emerge alive. They could have been proud to serve, ready to defeat the enemy, or they could have been paralyzed with fear. After considering all of this, I wish I could speak to someone who lived through it and would be able to give a bit more insight into that crossing.

One thing’s for sure. The conditions the soldiers had to travel in were the complete opposite of what we saw today. We’ve been extremely fortunate with weather this trip, nothing but sunshine. Today’s blue skies and light sea breeze added to the serene feeling aboard our ship. The full case, disco and lounge also probably had something to do with our joyful spirits. During that cold and blustery day in 1942, however, nothing could have been further from the truth.

As we peered over the edge of the ferry to catch our first glimpses of France, I considered how that sight would have appeared to the soldiers. For us, it was the exact medicine we needed to get recharged for the second leg of our trip. It was a new adventure, a new country and a renewed sense of spirit. For the soldiers, however, those first glimpses of land meant that their fate was upon them. Some didn’t make it out of the boat, being instantly gunned down, and some made it no further than the beaches. But for those soldiers, that first glimpse of land meant it was their time. It was their time to take back France in the name of the Allies.

Withstanding the tests of time — and war

By Thomas Wachtel
March 16, 2009

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In a lot of ways, London is not too different from a big American city, like New York or Chicago. People mill around and bump into one another in a rush to get to wherever they’re going. Tall buildings remind you just how small you are and how little it seems that each one of us matters. And of course, everyone speaks English — though in an odd accent that makes it tough for you to understand, and they use some words that we don’t, like "lift" and "lorry" and "Prime Minister." A lot of the time, the similarities make it easy to forget for a little while that you’re in another country.

But sometimes the differences are staggering, and it really reminds you how far from home you are. Today we had an experience that made one of those differences obvious. We took the Tube to St. Bride’s Church, damaged by bombs during the Blitz of London in World War II (which
Ernie Pyle wrote about). It’s also sort of the "journalist’s church," with plaques in honor of notable journalists.

Eventually, we found ourselves in the church’s crypt. The church had been rebuilt several times through the years, and a lot of the old foundations are visible to the visitor. The striking difference, though, is that unlike a similar church in the United States, this one has roots going all the way back to the Roman Empire. At the very back of the crypt, we saw part of a walkway that was used in Roman London about 2,000 years ago. And the artifacts included Roman coins, and some things that had been found from around the 1000s and the 1200s.

The point is that London, and England as a whole, have a lot more history than anything we’re really familiar with. And it makes you wonder about how time will treat our own home country. What will Washington, D.C. or New York City might be like in the year 2500 or 3000?. Will our country have the same staying power as England? Will people in the future visit the Capitol Building or the Lincoln Memorial or the George Washington Bridge in the same way that we visit the Houses of Parliament, the monument to Prince Albert or the Tower Bridge?

I think they will. I don’t think that the problems in our country will destroy us; after all, London has survived something like two great fires, several wars including the Nazi Blitzkrieg, and about six plagues. If they can take that, we can handle disagreements and money problems.

It would be really nice to get to find out firsthand, though.

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Reflections on the Imperial War Museum

By January Jones
March 16, 2009

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Before I left Bloomington, I collected Ernie Pyle’s London columns. His descriptions were vivid but it is hard to recreate something so long ago. When I think of WWII it is always in black and white. How do you find the color in the memory? What is it like to live with war?

On our second day here, we visited the Imperial War Museum. I saw the machines: war planes, tanks and bombs. Those things generally bore me, so I began to think the rest would be more of the same from the rest of the exhibits. This wasn’t the case at all. I ended up having a very emotional experience, a personal war experience I didn’t expect. The first tinge of emotions struck me before we entered the World War section. At the entrance is a memorial for all the people who have died in wars around the world. It is a counter and as we stood there, the red digital numbers increased. Three more people dead, five more, 20 more.

Inside, we saw a section called the Children’s War, where displays are designed around what the experience of wartime London was like for children. It wasn’t just facts, it was personal. Real faces, real voices talking about what it was like for them. Babies in gas masks, people standing amidst rubble that was their homes, churches or local stores. I was reminded of the children who were sent from the city to strangers in the safer countryside. I can’t imagine the combination of courage and guilt the parents had.

The museum also included a recreation of a typical house of the period, with children’s bedrooms and a living room where the newspaper was spread out over the couch. In the kitchen, a steel air raid cage stood in place of a table. It was all starting to come alive for me. The mundane routines of everyday life goes on amidst the threat of it all ending. The colors were fading in.

At the holocaust exhibit, I felt sad, confused and angry. I could feel the energy attached to objects such as the personal items — children’s shoes, buttons, toothbrushes – and clothing worn at the concentration camps. Genocide is real and continues. We said we would never forget and never let it happen again, but we didn’t mean it. Sentiments fade. How can younger generations even imagine? That’s why the museum is important. It is the legacy, the reminder of what has happened in the past, can happen again.

Observing the ‘mixtures’ of London

By Tara Titcombe
March 15, 2009
tara titcombeAs our weary, sleep-deprived bodies walked off the seven-hour, overnight flight, our minds began to run on adrenaline. We had little idea of what to expect and what we would experience on our trip to Europe, especially on our first stop, London. Yet once we boarded the tour bus that would take us from the Gatwick airport to the heart of the city, our worries subsided to our journalistic curiosity. We began to form our first impressions of London. For me this impression was a combination, much like the city itself.

The bus drove through the suburban outskirts of England’s largest city and the mixture of London began to emerge. The white washed stone houses and small fenced-in gardens lay just beyond the litter heaps on the roadside. The lush green farmland separated by age old hedgerows suddenly gave way to multiplexes and apartments buildings.

London is a city that slowly creeps up and then surrounds, consuming every inch. And that’s how the city came upon us, slowly building from anticipation on the plane ride from the States to the U.K., to excitement on the bus ride from the suburbs of Crydon and Norbury, to suddenly hitting us with the sights of Big Ben and Parliament along the River Thames.

The London contradictions continued as we walked along the blossoming garden paths towards Kensington Palace and as soccer teams played under a sky of clouds and peaks of sunshine.
The tour of the palace led us through the intense, long history of the city from the royalty of the 18th century to the rock-n-roll debutants of the 1950s.

The history of stone palaces lay a stone’s throw away from modern, glass investment firms. English pubs neighbor Pizza Hut, and the abundant parks disappear amidst the construction cranes atop every other building.

London most definitely is a city of mixture, but not just in history and sights. The diversity in the city is amazing. A quick walk across the London Bridge and you can hear Russian, German, Spanish and other European languages of tourists and some residents of the city.

As you notice that people here hold themselves with a little bit of a higher regard and an air of politeness and properness, you begin to quiet your boisterous American laughs, either consciously or not. The reserved attitude gives way to an laid-back European style.

There’s little doubt that after the palace visits, food endeavors, pub intakes and shopping vices of less than 24 hours, London’s unique mixture has enveloped us all. It causes us to love the city and to hate to know we’ll leave it soon.

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