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Jennifer Holik

80th Anniversary of D-Day Programs

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In 2024 we honor our WWII veterans during the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. If your library, museum, genealogy or historical society, homeschool group, or other organization is seeking WWII programming, I have what you need.

I’m now booking through 2024, individual programs, half-or full-day seminars, and study groups to teach people my 2-step process to research any veteran from WWII, even if the records burned. The strategies I developed also apply to WWI, Korea & Vietnam.

Learn more to explore all program options to customize your event and contact me to book your program today before dates fill up. This is especially important if you want to have research done prior to any 2024 travel. My strategies will save you time, money, and frustration.

Choose Your Experience

Create a Seminar

Book me to speak for your organization. Choose four programs, two required and two optional. If you want all six programs listed below, we can break the seminar into two days.

  • Four live 60-minute training sessions with 15 minute Q&A after each session. Two required programs (see below) and you choose the other two.
  • A workbook full of checklists, resources, and more! 

Create a Study Group

Do your members like study groups and more individualized attention? A minimum of 5 participants is required to form a group. Students each pay a fee to participate.

  • You receive all six programs listed below which run 60-75 minutes before a 15-minute Q&A. The My Doughboy’s Story program is 2-hours with Q&A.
  • Study Group can be set up to run over 2 days (3 programs on each day) or one program a week for 6 weeks. Day and evening time slots available.
  • 2 additional Live Q&A sessions will be scheduled for students to ask questions & share research finds. Replay will be provided.
  • Video replays and materials will be available to students for 3 months.
  • A workbook full of checklists, resources, and more! 

Learn more to explore all program options to customize your event and contact me to book your program today before dates fill up. This is especially important if you want to have research done prior to any 2024 travel. My strategies will save you time, money, and frustration.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

Explore New Genealogy & Military Research Classes

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Are you ready to expand your WWI and WWII military research education? Would you like to better understand who your veterans were and how their service affected your family and possibly even you? If so, I have several new offers for April and May at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School.

My Doughboy’s Story. A 2-hour webinar on Saturday 1 April 2023 at 10:00 a.m. CDT. Did all the records burn? Have you struggled to learn anything about your WWI Army soldier? Were you told his record burned at the NPRC? Have you given up hope of learning anything? Hope is here! Did you know there is a strategy to research military service correctly, that is easy to learn so you don’t waste time and money? Would you like to know how to reconstruct your WWI Army soldier’s service using online records so you can then obtain unit level records to put their story into context? If so, this webinar is for you!

Why Was Grandma So Mean? Live webinar Monday 10 April 2023 at 7 p.m. CDT. There are always more than two sides to every family story. Do you ever wonder what influenced the behaviors, patterns, & emotions of our ancestors? Explore your genealogy & military documents with new tools & questions to understand who your ancestors were & what shaped their behaviors.

Family Patterns Study Group. Are you living your ancestors’ lives on an unconscious level? Are their choices, patterns, unfulfilled dreams ruining aspects of your life? Are you ready to learn how your genealogical & military records can help explain who your ancestors were and who YOU are? Join one of my upcoming 5-week study groups and learn how to identify and release these patterns. Spring Study Group begins Saturday 22 April 2023. Coming soon – Summer  Sessions starting June 7 and June 10.

Stories from the Battlefield Seminar. This seminar will be held over four Sunday session. There will also be a bonus program specifically on researching your WWI Army soldier online. Class begins Sunday 23 April 2023 at 11:00 a.m. CDT.

All the records burned! But did they really or can we find information about our WWI and WWII veterans? Learn what records you need to answer your military research questions in this four-webinar seminar. The seminar includes an extensive workbook. In Research a Veteran, The Greatest Generation, Prisoners Missing and the Dead, and Researching WWII Online, you will learn research strategies and tips plus explore various records, to find the answers to your military questions.

To register for any of the above programs, visit the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School Store. While you’re there, be sure to grab a Freebie and join our email list.

Explore your family’s WWI or WWII history

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

The Gift of War

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Most people agree that war is hell. When we talk about war, it’s normally from the perspective of all the bad things, wrongs and harm done, pain and anguish endured, along with the death and destruction that took place.

We rarely discuss openly the effects war had on our veterans. It’s even rarer we talk about the effects war had on a veteran’s family, collateral relatives, and descendants.

Does anything good ever come from war?

Have you ever asked that question? Have you explored that perspective when looking at your family’s military experience? When you examine their beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and your own life? I think it does. I believe when we can connect deeply with our ancestors and their experiences during and after war, including the civilians at home, we can heal deep parts of ourselves. We can learn more about ourselves and our families. We can forgive, release, and heal.

Joseph Holik abt 1944-1945

My grandpa Joseph Holik served in the USNR in the Armed Guard during WWII. When I started my genealogical research in 1996, I heard elaborate stories about his Naval experience. At that time I had no idea how to military research and was basically obtaining as much information from family as I could.

Fast forward to 2010 when I started investigating my family’s military history, beginning with those who died in service. Grandpa survived the war but came home mentally damaged. I had a lot of questions but no records for a few more years. When I received the records, I realized the stories I had heard were lies. It took me several more years to understand why the stories may have been told.

Families who had veterans return with mental or physical disabilities often carried a lot of shame, grief, sadness, anger, hate, and other low vibrational energies. Based on books and studies I’ve read about returning WWII veterans, the propaganda was to move on, create a new life and forget the past. Keeping the war experience a secret was common for many families around the world, especially when there may have been a lot of judgment in the case of veterans with mental disabilities.

Ancestral Communication Goes Deeper

In 2012 I moved out and got a divorce and began communicating with my ancestors in new ways. They appeared through dreams, channeled writing, whispers, colors, and people’s conversations. I began having conversations beyond the veil with my Grandma Libbie, Joseph’s wife as I navigated the new reality of being a single mom. I began noticing parallels between her life and mine that I documented but didn’t give much other thought to until 2019. Joseph also began channeling into my writing and hanging around my house. Over the years his energy shifted many times as he went from being scared and angry to more peaceful. Then in 2019 I completed my first genogram and discovered the many ways I was living Joe & Libbie’s lives with my then Dutch husband. To say I shocked is an understatement.

So many things began to make sense in my life and relationship. So many emotions began to arise that have taken me four years to process. Healing is like peeling an onion and we can only do one layer at a time. I could feel so much pain from my grandparent’s experience. I could identify so many beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that were passed down through their boys to me to my own boys. I could painfully see how I took on their unfinished business and unfulfilled dreams as I tried to live them out with the Dutch husband.

Layer by layer I moved through these things. I also took a very humble look at myself and the energies from which I was functioning and living. Co-dependency (which most of humanity lives), over-giver, people pleaser, over-explainer, always being “on” and “ready” to tackle anything, terrible sleeper, PTSD triggers, and on and on and on. I began studying inherited trauma and somatic healing so I could save myself and heal the triggers so my body would start calming down. When the relationship with the Dutch man ended and then he died, even greater awareness and healing came through.

The Gifts of War

When I look at my Grandpa Joe’s life and war experience, I see how difficult it was for him to have first left his family to go fight. I can imagine how difficult it must have been for him to be afraid of what was happening during the war. To perhaps not understand what was happening to his mind. From his channeled messages I know how confused he was at times. How scared he was his family wouldn’t recognize him or need him when he returned. In many ways I’ve had experiences that brought up the same emotions. I sense in many ways we have walked similar paths. Seeing him as more than a “crazy man” or “war hero” but as a human with all that entails has been vital to my healing. Too often we tell stories about our veterans and call them a hero without actually looking at the effects of war on them or their families. We pretend by labeling them a hero that it fixes all the trauma and pain and we don’t have to be responsible and look at it. I think we need to look at it.

When I look at Grandma Libbie’s life and see so many parallels, I understand who she must have been during those years and beyond as she raised her boys without a father in the home. Libbie channeled in many times and also came through in meditation and energy healing sessions to encourage me to have the love she never had, live the life she didn’t get to live, and be happy. I took that on in addition to all the other energies I unconsciously took on to heal for our family and it wore me down. There are some days I am surprised I’m still standing after all the healing that has happened in my lineage. I know many of you reading this can also relate.

So can war provide us with gifts? Yes. At least that’s been my experience when I look at the whole picture after all these years of research and doing my personal and ancestral healing. I have been able to identify family beliefs, behaviors, and patterns along with the inherited trauma I carry. I have been able to shift through many emotions and perspectives about who my ancestors were, who I am and continue to be. I have witnessed the energetic shifts in my ancestors, especially these grandparents, in positive ways. Our ancestors do heal on the other side. I have been able to level up in my life, work, and relationships. I have also been able to acknowledge the good that came from the pain and trauma.

What have you noticed are your gifts of war? How has your family’s military service shaped and changed your life or that of your ancestral lineage? What life lessons can you share to help others?

Explore your family’s WWI or WWII history

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

WWII Veteran Compensation Applications

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In your quest for World War I and World War II military records, have you obtained this important document? The WWI or WWII Veteran Compensation Application? Post WWI and WWII, veterans or their beneficiaries if they died in service, were entitled to a bonus payment. Not all states apparently participated in this program but if your state did, these records are held at the State Archive level. If you are seeking a discharge paper so you can begin research, you definitely want to see if the state in which your veteran lived after one of these wars has these files.

If you had a veteran from Korea, Vietnam or more current wars, bonus payments were also given to those veterans, at least in Illinois. Check with your state archives about access.

What You Need to Know About These Files

These files contain several documents such as KIA death telegrams; discharge papers; affidavits or family letters; applications; documents for amount paid to the individual or beneficiary, and more.

Each state has different access rules for WWI and WWII Veterans Compensation Payment Applications. In Illinois, WWI applications have been available for years. The WWII applications just became available this year on January 1, 2023. Check with your state archives for access. Please note: The Illinois State Archives also redacts the serial or service number on all pages they send you. They consider it personally identifiable information. In my opinion this is ridiculous because you can get the ASN or SN from NPRC or NARA or several places online. But that is what they told me when I asked why the number was blacked out on everything they’ve sent me.

Michael standing in uniform

Additionally for Illinois – there was a fire wherever the WWI Bonus Applications were held years ago and many of those applications are gone. I was able to get the one for my great grand uncle Michael Kokoska, who I wrote about in my book Stories of the Lost, available on this website. His file is burned around the edges but all the good info was intact. For others I have tried to get for WWI, especially late in the alphabet – they burned.

These files may be under many different names like: WWI/WWII Bonus Application. WWI/WWII Veteran Compensation Application. WWI/WWII Bonus Case Files. So be sure to check all possibilities.

Some of these files are partially online BUT you need to contact your state archives to get the entire file. Pennsylvania has them digitized on Ancestry. For those service members who survived the war, it is a 2-page application. You will want to contact the archives to get the entire file as it should contain many other pages including a discharge paper which is VITAL for those researching Army or Air Corps/Army Air Force individuals. There are a few more pages for those who were KIA in the war and lived in Pennsylvania but you still want to contact the archives for all pages. Iowa also has their 2-page application on Ancestry. Again, contact the state archives.

I can also report, from attempting to get these files for WWII from the New York State Archives – NY has them on microfilm offsite. It was quite the ordeal to get them to get the film from offsite storage and then search the film. All they came back with was a tax receipt that the veteran I was seeking was given a payment. I find it strange they didn’t have the application with that receipt because other states have all those records in one file.

Read Some Files

Here are the complete files for a couple of my family members so you can get an idea of what they contain, at least in Illinois.

Frank J. Kokoska – survived the war. Includes his discharge paper

James Privoznik – KIA 11 January 1945

Explore your family’s WWI or WWII history

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

Call On Your Ancestors For Help

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I don’t know about some of you, but for the last three years in particular, I’ve witnessed and experienced the upheaval in the collective, governments, countries, systems, and within myself. Humanity has been going through a massive transformation whether people realize it or not. Many of you who follow me know exactly what I am talking about.

In recent months this transformation and upgrade has intensified and sped up. This has left many of us feeling off balance, over emotional, uncertain, and upside down. For me the last three years, it’s been a massive untangling of everything that doesn’t serve me. I’ve had to face some hard truths about myself, people I love, work I do, how I live, and every area of my life and all relationships has been touched and demolished so it can be rebuilt. Are you also experiencing this?

One thing that has consistently helped me move through this transformative time is calling on my ancestors, particularly my military ancestors for help, love, and guidance.

From left to right: Frank Kokoksa (WWII); Virginia Brouk (WWII), Robert Brouk (AVG Flying Tiger & WWII), Michael Kokoska (WWI), Joseph Kokoska (great grandpa spirit guide), Frank Winkler (WWII), James Privoznik (WWII), Joseph Holik (WWII).

It’s been said that every 10 years we go through a massive life change. Have you noticed this? I’ve been thinking about this recently and 10 years ago from the period June 2012-June 2013, everything changed for me. My ancestors had already been communicating with me and supporting me but their investment in my life increased at that time. My military ancestors in particular began showing up in various ways to push me forward with the new life I was creating and the work I was moving into.

The ancestors who provided the most love and support then were Joseph Kokoska, James Privoznik and to some degree Robert & Ginny Brouk, and Michael Kokoska. Joseph Kokoska served as the primary ancestral guide in that he was kind of the leader which allowed everyone else to show up. That may sound strange and not the way you have experienced ancestral connection but that’s how it showed up for me. Joseph helped me feel and experience what unconditional love felt like. He also gave me some hard truths and options to look at as I started that new life.

James Privoznik helped me in two main ways……transforming my genealogy business into a military research business and helped me meet a man I would later marry to help me transform and heal so much for myself, my ancestors, and the collective.

My grandpa Joseph Holik also showed up but his story was too painful for me to fully look at all at once. Do you have ancestors with painful lives that you slowly move through? There is no right or wrong way to research or get to know our ancestors. Sometimes it’s like healing and peeling an onion. We have to take one layer at a time.

I tip toed through Joseph’s military records, life story, our family story, and patterns for at least 10 years as I slowly made peace with things. People think we can’t unconsciously live our ancestors lives but I’m living proof we can. I did this with my former husband on so many levels.

How did I get to know my military ancestors on a deeper level? I have a gift of seeing beyond the veil and through layers of stories and genealogy and military records others do not. Joseph Kokoska also made sure I did the emotional and often difficult military work for my ancestors and clients so I could process decades of stored emotions and hidden stories of my ancestors.

I also used tools like timelines and genograms to identify hidden family patterns. I used guided or channeled writing or meditation to speak with them. I watched for signs from them and validation of questions I asked. Sometimes this showed up through a spirit animal, a coin, a color, my grandma’s face powder (letting me know she was nearby), feathers, or other things.

As I sit here 17 March 2023, my military ancestors are getting loud again. They are reminding me to get loud, play larger, be more visible, and be of greater service to humanity. I’m also hearing it is time to put on my armor and be the light warrior I came here to be in a bigger way. The world is shifting and those of us who came here to be on the ground crew to help humanity, work with our ancestors to heal the past, and create this New Earth are being called into greater service.

There is no fear to be had when we call upon the support of our ancestors. They patiently await our call and are ready to help us create this new world. So today I invite you to sit quietly and call upon your ancestors through guided writing, meditation, genealogy or military research, writing, or any other way you sit with your ancestors.

Would you like support?

Would you like support in exploring your family history and connecting more deeply to your ancestors? Explore the private sessions I offer at the Ancestral Souls Wisdom School.

Are you seeking more of an educational type of experience? If so, you are invited to learn more about and register for my upcoming Patterns Study Group. This 5-week study group will help you identify through genealogical and military records, family beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and traumas that exist and help you think about ways you are living these energies. Current sessions begin 27 March 2023 and 22 April 2023. Summer sessions will be added soon.

Explore your family’s WWI or WWII history

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

Who Will Your Research Impact or Heal?

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When we embark on genealogical or military research or simply share family stories around the Sunday dinner table, we open a space to impact the lives of those around us and heal. Have you ever considered how your one “small” act of research may help someone in countless ways? How that one document you discover or story you share can heal a broken heart?

Recently as I’ve been helping someone research their family history because I simply wanted to know where in Belgium his family came from and had I visited there…..I have been thinking about the ripple effect of this research on his family.

Whether we know it or not, and many of you reading this will know because you are the family healer, the breaker of cycles…..the questions we ask family members or stories we tell has an impact. It may trigger old wounds or memories to surface for the listener to confront.

Think of it like a spiderweb or drop in the water that ripples out. Our story, a document, some military research, or question that begins with us, once shared can impact and change or even heal multiple lives. Lives we may never even know it has affected.

I’m seeing this with my friend and his research as we connect more with his family to discuss the findings. Old stories and memories are being triggered. Ancestors are stepping forward toward me to ask for help or communicate something. I’m realizing the impact I’m already having and I know this information is being shared. I’m also aware of some of the healing taking place through conversations I’m having with family members. It’s humbling to be a facilitator of this helping and healing. It’s also healing for me to witness our shared family patterns and traumas.

Never underestimate how much your research and stories can help someone or heal. You are here to change the world.

Are you ready to step into this space? If so, you are invited to register for my upcoming Patterns Study Group. This 5-week study group will help you identify through genealogical and military records, family beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and traumas that exist and help you think about ways you are living these energies. Current sessions begin 27 March 2023 and 22 April 2023. Summer sessions will be added soon.

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

Ghosts of the Pacific

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Grief is a tricky thing. It ebbs and flows and can turn our realities upside down and inside out. Unresolved grief can span generations and consume the living in ways we may not realize. Have you ever considered how the unresolved grief from World War II may still be lingering in your family and how it might be affecting you?

USS Belleau Wood CVL 24

There are many types of grief one can experience. One in particular is called ambiguous loss. This term was coined by Dr. Pauline Boss and refers to a lack of information and closure that surrounds the loss of a loved one. Many military families throughout time and all wars have experienced this type of loss when their loved one has been declared MIA (Missing In Action), KIA (Killed In Action), or is unrecoverable.

This may be because their service member’s remains are in a location that is not conducive to retrieval (think a plane down in the Pacific Ocean). Perhaps they are known to be Killed on a certain day in a battle, but there was nothing left to retrieve or the remains are comingled with others. Additionally, the remains may have been where they fell for so long that nothing remains. There are other options that exist but these are a few.

I have been working on some new WWII projects and one in particular for an Aviation Electrician’s Mate named Frank L. Peterson. Frank served in the U.S. Navy as a gunner on an aircraft stationed on the USS Belleau Wood CVL24 in 1945. Sadly Frank was KIA on 27 March 1945 when his torpedo bomber was hit by “friendly” anti-aircraft fire and it crashed as an emergency landing on the ship was attempted. The plane ended up in the ocean. Frank will never be recovered. His family was informed of the event that led to his death (I’ve heard stories), but it leaves me wondering how they processed their grief, if they processed, and how the family is impacted today.

With many clients I’ve worked with over the last 13 years, many have suffered this type of loss where a husband or son, grandson or nephew, is unrecoverable for many years or forever. Clients have reported that the family, at the time, emotionally shut down. Never spoke of the lost veteran again. Never allowed any other children or grandchildren to be named after the war hero. The grief ran deep and down through the generations until someone chose to research the veteran’s story.

Another Perspective

Have you considered this perspective of ambiguous loss……the families who lost a veteran to their physical or mental demons? Those veterans who spent some or all of the rest of their lives post-war in a Veteran’s Hospital? In a sense, the loved one has been lost, especially in cases of mental health diagnoses. A wife may be legally married but living as a “widow” because her husband is no longer physically present. A child may be a “war orphan” because his father is in a veteran’s hospital.

My family experienced this with my grandfather. His service was surrounded by stories told to me, unfounded by fact. Our family was impacted by the loss of this man, the secrets held, and emotional withdrawal of his story as it impacted any of us. It has taken me years to dive into the depths of his story, his life, his service, and how it was affecting my life and relationships on an unconscious level.

Confronting our own grief or that of our family that has been passed down through our DNA as inherited trauma can be scary. What will we discover if we open up this pandora box of the past and start asking questions? Who might we upset or offend? Why is it even important to ask questions and find answers or process the grief?

In many families there is one person who is the family healer. The one who is called upon by the ancestors to ask the hard questions and find answers. To tell the story so others can heal. Often this person carries the brunt of the family’s unresolved trauma or grief. I know because I have personally experienced this and it affected my life in shocking ways. Once I faced the past, my entire life began to change.

At this point in our world history, it is vital that we step into the space of family healer and bring these darker stories to the light. It is time to heal. It is time to confront these beliefs, behaviors, and patterns we carry from the past. When we heal, our ancestors heal. The world heals.

Are you ready to step into this space? If so, you are invited to register for my upcoming Family Patterns Study Group. This 5-week study group will help you identify through genealogical and military records, family beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and traumas that exist and help you think about ways you are living these energies. Current sessions begin 27 March 2023 and 22 April 2023. Summer sessions will be added soon.

Are you ready to explore your family’s WWI or WWII history? Book a free phone consult today or email me at info@wwiirwc.com.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

Family Patterns Genealogy Study Group

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We all carry parental and ancestral beliefs, behaviors, patterns, and traumas within us. We inherited these (often negative or toxic) things through our DNA, life experiences and learned behaviors. Did you know these things may be affecting, ruining, and running your life on an unconscious level? Why didn’t anyone tell us this when we started our genealogy education?

Sounds crazy right? 

I know! I can tell you from personal experience, we can live out our ancestors’ unfulfilled dreams, patterns, and traumas without even realizing it!  Living out my WWII grandparent’s patterns and unfulfilled dreams created chaos in my life and marriage. Those unconscious patterns dragged me into a very dark place until the day I shockingly realized whose life I was living! Then I began more research & personal life examination to put an end to these patterns and cycles. Our ancestral patterns can ruin our lives, careers, joys, and relationships if they remain in the dark beneath the surface. 

THERE IS HOPE

Your Genealogical & Military Records Can Help You Identify & Release Negative Family Patterns & Trauma

Yes, It Really Is Possible!

In Family Patterns Study Group, you’ll learn how to examine your genealogical & military records, family stories, letters, journals, and life experiences through a different lens to stop toxic or negative patterns.

Visit the information page to learn what’s included in the study group, module contents, details on the exclusive community and more! Will you join us? Two sessions available starting March 27, 2023.

© 2023 WWII Research & Writing Center

New Programs Available for 2023 Speaking Engagements

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I’m so excited to announce all new programs for 2023. Is your organization looking for a speaker on topics of ancestral healing, inherited trauma, surveying family systems, genograms, genealogy, and military research? I have just what you need. A few of the new programs include:

  • Why Was Grandma So Mean?
  • Wise Female Ancestors
  • Surveying Family Systems
  • Trauma’s Hidden Web
  • Healing the Roots
  • What’s Wrong With Daddy?

Visit my Speaker Page to learn more about these new programs and email me at jennifer@ancestralsouls.com to discuss fees, dates, and possibilities.

All programs available via Zoom or in-person.

© 2022 WWII Research & Writing Center

Waiting to Explode

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A few days ago I went to a Documentary Screening at Cantigny where the First Division Museum is, in Winfield, Illinois. The documentary was called Waiting to Explode.

There were three panelists and a man running the event. I didn’t catch his name but the panelists were:

Journalist Jessica Pearce Rotondi, Board member of Legacies of War and author of What We Inherit: A Secret War and a Family’s Search for Answers.

Jim Harris of We Help War Victims.

Yosh Yamanaka, of UXO Clearance Laos, the film’s producer.

Now, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the Shadow/Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War. This was not something I knew about or understood the severity of until I attended this event. I also bought Jessica’s book before the event, because I wanted to learn about inherited trauma through this lens. My focus has normally been WWI-WWII as far as trauma research, so I hoped she would talk a little about that in the Q&A after the screening. She did not. The film is being shown at various locations but is not widely available on television or streaming services, although that is a hope for the panelists.

The film was interesting, informative, and quite sad. I sat there questioning again WHY all the endless wars and endless suffering. Suffering that has never ended after almost 50 years because there is so much unexploded ordnance in Laos. Google Cluster Bombs to learn more about this ordnance scattered all over the country. I didn’t know these types of bombs existed until I saw this film. I again pondered how many ways can we kill a man?

Several stories were told about people affected by the ordnance and how their families were forever changed because of U.S. involvement. This, like so many other pieces of history should be known, but I was not impressed with how the Q&A went or the views of the panelists. Their energy was so strong I left with a massive headache after the hour-long Q&A which seemed to not want to end so others could watch the 3 p.m. screening.

The man running the event and the men on the panel went into a shame the veterans energy. They spoke of how they argued with Cantigny staff to host the film ON Veterans Day instead of the day after. The presenters felt veterans needed to know what they had done. They also expected a higher turnout for the screening on Veterans Day than on Saturday. I don’t know how many people visited Cantigny during the day of Veterans Day but for the evening ceremony, if there were 50 of us in attendance I’d be surprised.

The presenters also seemed to be a little scattered and I’m going to wager a guess, never served in the military.

I don’t personally feel we need to blame veterans for things they participate in during their time in service. They were following orders, which I realize is not an excuse for damage done, however, that’s how the system runs. Accountability and change has to begin at the top on more of a collective energetic level. On an individual level, each person who participated in a war or bombardment has to also make peace within themselves about their actions. This is not for us to judge – especially if we have never served – we were not there.

I left with a lot of emotions and thoughts about the film, the panelists and presenter, and how individuals just following orders created massive collective trauma. Trauma that continues today. I have a lot of questions now and no answers. The only thing I know is I left with a bad taste in my mouth about the veteran shaming energy.

Have you seen the movie or read Jessica’s book? I’d love to know your thoughts on both.

© 2022 WWII Research & Writing Center