Researching Roy
It is an interesting thing, researching someone who has been dead for sixty-nine years. Mostly everything to find is census records, and you have to cross-reference different documents to be sure that the Roy in that document is in fact, the Roy you are looking for. The first snag I hit was finding a record of the Eisele family which included Roy in it. I had to learn how to research, and I contacted several Historical Societies. Through them, I was able to find how to connect the dots and piece the facts I had together. Census records are a peculiar and rather aggravating thing to work with. When each census is recorded, it is done with the recorder writing down the information, not the citizen. This creates spelling differences, such as Sisele or Ezelle instead of Eisele.
It was much easier to research Roy's military history. I have the 303rd Bomb Group and the Eighth Air Force Historical Society to thank for that. Their websites provided me with almost every document that I could find outside of the National Archives. They had listed every mission report, and every plane Eisele had flown. This was probably the simplest part of the research. I am still researching Roy, and still looking for any relatives that I may call. I am looking for families of his crew, any information that I may find is another step in uncovering the mystery which has shrouded this man's life. I want to know more, I want to understand what this man went through. I want to know, Roy Eisele. |
Giving the EulogyBeing in the Normandy Cemetery feels like a dream to someone like me, someone who has done so much research and anticipated the moment for so long. The cemetery is green and silent except for the sound of the occasional lawn mower and the national anthem that plays every twenty minutes. It overlooks Omaha Beach, an extraordinarily beautiful, tainted scene. You know the whole while you look over its beauty that a bloodbath took place and it seems as though the red is still in the sand, even though it had washed away almost seventy years ago. The graves of the soldiers are all perfectly aligned and when looking at a diagonal, they make a perfect, endless triangle. Standing at Roy's Grave was unlike anything I have ever experienced. It is spooky to think that his body was just beneath my feet. I imagine what it looked like empty, the whole cemetery covered in churned dirt, no grass, no trees, simply a multitude of graves.
It is hard to explain what it feels like to give the Eulogy of a soldier who died during the Normandy Campaign. You feel a mixture of intense pride, sorrow, and joy. In a moment of pain, you remember the feel of it, but I know that I felt to immediate pain in being there. All I felt, was simply sorrow and acceptance that Roy was dead. I never knew him so I did not feel the grief that one feels at the loss of a loved one, however I did feel a kind of sorrow. This sorrow was not exclusive to him though, It was also for every soldier buried in the cemetery, every grave that I passed added a new sorrow. |
The TripGoing to France with the Albert H. Small Normandy scholars was an amazing experience. I was able to go to Washington D.C. for the first time, and see all the important war memorials. We, all the scholars and teachers, stayed in the dorms of George Washington University for the first week of our excursion and were able to see the beautiful campus where our instructor, Dr. Long works as a professor. D.C was really where all the students bonded and formed their own little groups, however it seemed as though no one person was exclusive to one group. Any one of us could be around another one of the fifteen students and be comfortable. Washington was where we did most of our studying, a lecture or two a day followed by lunch and then some excursion somewhere. In the beginning riding in the tour bus was strange, but I got used to it after a while. Probably the most frustrating part of the trip was the packing and unpacking and moving our numerously assorted bags on and off the bus, but packing aside, there were no other real irritants the entire trip. Once we were done with Washington D.C, It was time to depart for France.
This was a climactic point in my travels, because I had never really been outside of the country, yet alone overseas. We were all told to sleep on the plane because we would depart in the afternoon and arrive in Charles De Gualle early in the morning. After that we were to have a full day of touring and we were instructed not to sleep on the bus. It is one thing to know the sense and reason behind instruction and another to carry out the task. As far as I know only a few were able to doze for a couple of hours while in flight, and all of us slept on the bus. Our first day in Normandy was a tired one. |