Honoring my family’s war dead this Memorial Day weekend
The ancestors will guide you. They will help heal you—if you allow them to work through you. That is how I transformed a genealogy business into a thriving military research, writing, and teaching career while healing myself along the way. I allowed the ancestors to speak through the work.
In 2010, I wrote my first book, To Soar with the Tigers, about my AVG Flying Tiger cousin, Robert Brouk. At the time, I had no idea how profoundly that single act would change my life, nor how that book would continue to give back year after year.
After I finished Bob’s story, other ancestors who had died in war stepped forward and said, “If you wrote about him, you must write about us too. Learn how to do it, even though the records burned.”
What began as a genealogy business slowly evolved into a military research business—guided entirely by my ancestors. That first book had only been a bucket-list project. I never imagined I would go on to write more than 20 additional books. But the ancestors had other plans for me.
One of the first to appear was my great-granduncle, Michael Kokoska, alongside his brother Joseph—my great-grandfather and one of my ancestral spirit guides for many years. I wrote Michael’s story using genealogical records and the few military documents I could locate between 2010 and 2012, before I had fully developed my research strategy. His story eventually became part of my book Stories of the Lost.
Every story in that book is written differently because each one relied on a different set of genealogical, family, and military records, discoveries, and lessons. With every story, I learned more—not only about research, but about myself. Each one healed parts of me while bringing my family’s fallen soldiers back to life.
As I wrote Michael’s story, I could feel both his pain and the grief carried by his father, Joseph Kokoska Sr. You might say I channeled parts of the ending, or perhaps it simply flowed through me. While the story is grounded in documented sources and citations, there was something undeniably magical and deeply healing about writing it. I cannot count the tears I shed while writing, rewriting, and allowing myself to sink deeper into the pain my family had carried for generations.
When I teach, I often share the ending of Michael’s story. Thanks to a cousin who has since passed away, I was also able to include treasured family photographs that brought even more life to the narrative.
Bring a tissue. This story has brought big, burly grown men to tears. And truthfully, I still get a little emotional every time I share this part of the story in my classes.
© 2026 World War II Research and Writing Center
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