Learning from the voices of war: Honoring the 80th anniversary of the final major battle of WWII

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Veterans History Project

American troops pull back with wounded during World War II's Ardennes Offensive in December 1944.

Family Features- The Ardennes Offensive, commonly known as the "Battle of the Bulge", stands as the single bloodiest battle fought by the United States during World War II. Waged in the bitter cold of mid-December 1944, it took the Allies a month to secure victory. The cost was staggering: nearly 20,000 Americans were killed in action, close to 50,000 wounded and another 20,000 captured.

In honor of the 80th anniversary of this pivotal battle, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project has launched an online exhibit to commemorate the milestone. While the battle itself is etched in the annals of history, the personal stories from those who endured it remain one of the most powerful testaments to its impact.

The online exhibit, "Serving Our Voices," features accounts from 12 Battle of the Bulge survivors, part of the thousands of narratives preserved by the project. These stories ensure future generations can gain deeper understanding of veterans' service and sacrifice.

One such story includes Eliot Annable, a 20-year-old radio operator serving with the Army's 106th Infantry Division. Just days after arriving at the western front, Annable found himself under German artillery barrages on. Dec. 16, 1944. He recalled the assault in his oral history, describing the intensity as "almost enough to knock you on the floor."

The following five days became the most harrowing days of Annable's military service. While on a communications mission, he became stranded behind enemy lines and spent nearly a week evading the enemy in the Ardennes Forest without food, shelter or appropriate winter clothing. After traveling more than 30 miles, he eventually safely rejoined the remnants of his unit.

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Veterans History Project

Back home, Annable's parents were gripped by uncertainty. On Dec. 31, 1944, his father wrote a letter expressing the family's anguish and love for their son, regardless of what happened. The moving letter, coupled with Annable's oral history, provides an intimate view into one soldier's Battle of the Bulge experience.

Another featured veteran in the exhibit, Guy Martin Stephens, also served with the 106th Infantry Division. Unlike Annable, Stephens was captured by the Germans during battle. In his oral history, he recounted the surreal feeling of combat, the relentless hunger he endured as a prisoner of war and the lingering effects of his time in captivity.

"It's hard," Stephens said. "It's something you can't ever ... your mind is just like a video, or camcorder, I guess. You put it in there. You get busy and get married. You get home, and you get an education, and get a job, and raise your family and everything like that. You can kind of gloss it over or try to push it back, but it's always there, you know?"

Veterans who served during the 20th or 21st centuries are invited to establish a collection, including interviews (video or audio), letters and original photographs, even if they did not see combat. Families can also submit collections posthumously to honor their loved ones. To explore more veterans' stories and learn how you can contribute to the program, visit loc.gov/vets.


Commentary |
Teaching about race is good, actually; states need to quit banning it

by Ian Wright
OtherWords.org

In this back to school season, millions of American students are returning to classrooms where the wrong course, lesson, or textbook can lead to deep trouble. Why? Because for the last several years, conservative activists and lawmakers have been waging a crusade against “critical race theory,” or CRT.

Critical race theory is an academic concept acknowledging that racism isn’t simply the result of individual prejudice but is also embedded in our institutions through laws, regulations, and rules.

As school districts have emphasized, it’s a higher education concept rarely taught in K-12 schools. But cynical activists have used CRT as a catch-all term to target a broad range of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — and seemingly any discussion about race and racism in the classroom.

Since January 2021, 44 states have “introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism,” according to Education Weekly. And as of this writing, UCLA has identified 807 anti-CRT “bills, resolutions, executive orders, opinion letters, statements, and other measures” since September 2020.

Critics claim — falsely — that CRT teaches that all white people are oppressors, while Black people are simply oppressed victims. Many opponents claim it teaches white students to “hate their own race,” or to feel guilty about events that happened before they were born.

In reality, CRT gives students of every race the tools to understand how our institutions treat people of different races unequally — and how we can make those systems fairer. That’s learning students of every race would be better off with.

But instead, this barrage of draconian legislation is having a chilling effect on speech in the classroom.

In 2022, Florida passed the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibits teaching that could lead to a student feeling “discomfort” because of their race, sex, or nationality. But the law’s vague language makes it difficult for educators to determine what they can or cannot teach, ultimately restricting classroom instruction. In my home state of Texas, SB3 similarly restricts these classroom discussions.

Running afoul of these laws can get teachers and school administrators in trouble. As a result of this hostile environment, the RAND Corporation found that two-thirds of K-12 school teachers have decided “to limit instruction about political and social issues in the classroom.”

Notably, this self-censorship extends beyond states with such policies: 55 percent of teachers without state or local restrictions on CRT have still decided to limit classroom discussions of race and history.

As a student, I find this distressing.

My high school history classes gave me a much richer understanding of race in our history, especially the discussions we had at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. And in college, I’ve gotten to learn about racial inequalities in everything from housing and real estate to health care, politics, education, and immigration policy.

As a person of color, I can’t imagine where I’d be without this understanding. Neither white students nor students of color will benefit from laws designed to censor their understanding of history, critical thinking, and open dialogue in the classroom.

The fight against CRT is a fight against the principles of education that encourage us to question, learn, and grow. Rather than shielding students from uncomfortable truths, which they can certainly handle, we should seek to equip them with the knowledge to navigate the world, think critically about our history and institutions, and push for a more inclusive country.


Ian Wright

Ian Wright is a Henry A. Wallace Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and a student at Rice University from Dallas, Texas. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.


In pursuit of art, the importance of building your personal collection

by Ian Wang


Ian Wang
Photo provided
People who have experienced living and working far away from their hometown may feel the same: The farther away and the more time since you have left home, the more eager you are to know and to learn any and every detail that relates to your homeland. You feel so dear, so deep, and so emotional towards anything and everything, big or small, from your homeland. That was why I started collecting artworks created by artists of my homeland as a medium or vehicle for communication, expression, and socio-cultural exchange when I studied at Oxford University.

While serving as the president of Spurlock Museum's Board of Directors, I researched the history of the University of Illinois' first art collection at the museum. I learned how and why the University's first president, John Gregory, collected art and established the first art gallery/museum on campus.

From day one as UI president, John Gregory firmly believed that “man should be primarily educated as a human being and only secondary for his occupation.” Therefore, Gregory called for a university to produce “clear-headed, broad-breasted scholars, men of fully developed minds who would be valuable citizens capable of taking their places in legislative assemblies or other positions to which they might be called from their normal occupations.”

In other words, the University was to cultivate real men rather than technically trained professionals. His desire was to establish an institute firmly grounded in the liberal arts tradition.

Profoundly influenced by Gregory’s vision and deliberation, I started focusing on collecting, researching, and exhibiting UI art (artworks created by University faculty, staff, and students) for the same purpose of cultivating “real men”.

After more than 25 years of pursuit, I have collected multiple thousand pieces of UI art, studied and written/published a few hundred articles in local, national, and international newspapers and magazines. So far, I have curated almost 100 art exhibitions at the University and local community galleries/venues. In the process, I have learned and enjoyed much about art in general and our UI art in particular, and developed a personal doctrine for collecting art. Concisely, my philosophy is:

1. Collect art interactively with artists is the most important and enjoyable way of studying/learning art deeply and directly from its creator.

2. Collect art systematically.

3. Collecting art comprehensively.

4. Collect art creatively.


A long-time resident of Champaign-Urbana, Ian Wang is an art historian and curator. Wang is currently providing an informative lecture series entitled "150 Plus Years UI Art Creation" for Tuesday At Ten at the Champaign Public Library at 10 am on Tuesdays through December 12.


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