'Stories To Be Told': World War II Backdrop For New High School Program

U.S. military veterans and their families are starting a new endeavor intended to provide perspective, communication skills and education to the youth while using the history of World War II as a backdrop.

The Normandy Leadership Junior Program starting to be implemented in American high schools is being overseen by former commanding general of U.S. Army Accessions Command Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, Amb. Michael Polt, and Col. Derek Keller (retired U.S. Army Special Forces). The program’s overarching mission is to encourage personal growth in young people by getting them to understand how history shaped not only the current world, but how it will impact future generations.

It teaches younger Americans how to think critically, communicate clearly, act decisively, and lead others in the face of uncertainty based on strong values, ethical behavior and character. It’s bred from a broader education-based initiative called Ambassadors to History, which gives high schoolers the opportunity to immerse themselves within the D-Day generation and other parts of history.

For some, that journey will culminate with an actual multi-day trip this June to Normandy, France.

“We basically have been conceptualizing this idea for several years,” Freakley told Military.com. “When I was a young man, there were many World War I veterans around—my town, my county, and people I ran across.”

'Stories Need To Be Told'

Freakley has decades of experience in myriad realms. He served in the U.S. Army for more than 36 years, retiring as a three-star lieutenant general. He’s been deployed on missions in Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s overseen military recruiting and training.

For the last 13 years, he’s served at Arizona State University as an advisor to the university president for leadership initiatives. That led to the creation of the Public Service Academy, inspiring and training young men and women to serve in different capacities such as for United States Agency for International Development (USAID) USAID or Teach for America.

Most recently, Freakley co-founded the ASU Lab for Leadership, Diplomacy and National Security.

Freakley said participation in annual or five-year D-Day anniversaries has become customary, getting to know the World War II generation that included his father and father-in-law.

“Their stories, as their lives, are running out, quite frankly,” he said. “Tragically, we're losing that generation, and they did such remarkable things as leaders—from the young soldier level all the way through the general officer level."

We believe those stories need to be told.

Providing Access

Monique Tapie, along with Kathryn Hernandez and Luba Tolkachyov, founded Ambassadors to History to preserve the World War II legacy. Tapie’s father fought for Charles De Gaulle’s Free French Forces against Nazi Germany, as did her father’s identical twin. Her uncle also fought for the U.S. Navy in the war.

Tapie told Military.com that growing up in New York City in the aftermath of World War II, she found that history was not being preserved but more so being forgotten through the education system within public schools.

She sought new methods to bring leadership training into schools and to teach that through the eyes of history. After meeting Freakley and advancing her own career in the communications industry, Tapie saw value in providing a unique approach to young Americans who lack context and/or the skills to thrive.

“I work in France a lot, I'm fluent in French,” Tapie said. “So, we started cultivating relationships on the ground with political leaders in Normandy with the American Battle Monuments Commission.

“And what we did as a test program was bring youth there, but as youth journalists, teaching them what happened, getting them interviews, worked with Delta's Brand Pad program—which is a program where they distributed iPads to World War II veterans, where the kids got to interview through Zoom.”

That on-the-ground crash course will, as soon as applications conclude in February, give high school students the ability to not only participate in annual D-Day ceremonies but also conduct interviews with World War II veterans, public officials, survivors and their families.

One video shared with Military.com, for example, shows two female high schoolers interviewing U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the importance of freedom.

“We know in particular that young people today really learn experientially because they've grown up with technology and they've been able to be in the technology, if you will, in gaming and in simulations and in interaction with others through social media,” Freakley said.

“They learn experientially, so taking our history and the example of leadership—by those who served in the 1940s—and extrapolating that to experiential learning for young people. We know that we have a program that can teach young people about being a character-driven leader. That's the commitment to do the right thing in the right way, for the right reason, and base that on historical examples that can anchor them to thinking about making decisions, leading them in their own right years from now.”

How The Program Works

Using her communications background, Tapie said that youth are taught responsible communications, how to disseminate information, how to interview subjects, and proper interview skills. 

A lot of the kids today, because they live quite often online, they're lacking those communication skills.

The last component involves bringing some of the youth to Normandy for four days and four nights, where they get to be on the ground with Col. Keller. They visit different sites and conduct interviews that include better understanding the struggles to achieve liberation.

Students are later tasked to comprise some sort of presentation on their findings and experiences. Then, they receive certificates of completion from ASU and the Normandy-related program that can be beneficial when applying to higher education.

“The other component of it is learning to be good communicators and learning how to really access information, verify information, and use information appropriately,” Freakley said. “As we know in the current era we're in, there's a lot of misinformation and so we know that good leaders need to be able to lead ethically and morally, but also be able to communicate.”

Another video showed program participants interviewing a World War II veteran known as “Papa Jake,” who discussed his military career.

“Papa Jake has a huge following on social media,” Tapie said. “When Papa Jake ‘liked’ the video of his interview and told them that they did great, these kids were screaming louder than they did when they got tickets to Taylor Swift. For me, that was amazing to see this transformation.”

Other interview opportunities have led to the youth getting to fly out, meet Holocaust survivors. Freakley, Tapie and others have been in discussions with educational travel tourism companies to aid in facilitating these unique interviews because, as Tapie said, nothing like that currently exists.

“What Ben and I have discussed numerous times is the different components of history,” Tapie said. "That goes beyond just the Normandy Leadership Program but delves deeper by means of the American Revolution Leadership Program, the Constitutional Leadership Program, the Civil Rights Leadership Program, and Civil War Leadership Program.

“They get to understand the different aspects of history and why we have the freedoms that we have today, with an understanding of cause and effect on history and how to become responsible communicators and leaders for the future,” she said.

A New America

Freakley, echoing his longstanding mission at ASU, said that the program will be known not by who is excluded but who is included and how they succeed.

Now is the right time for numerous reasons, he added. From the perils of depression and economic and social anxieties from decades ago, to the lore that has long encapsulated the American experience—such as the efforts of Audie Murphy, the most decorated World War II soldier and a Medal of Honor recipient.

The other piece of it all is the changing societal and cultural landscape. Freakley said that programs that traditionally built resilient youth into leaders—like 4-H, FFA, Teach Departments of America, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts—have a dissipated presence in the American zeitgeist.

“America today stands on what these women and men did in this tough time, and came out of that tough time and advanced our country,” Freakley said. “That's what we want these young people today to do, [to] experience programs like this, learn about effective leadership, learn about those who've served before, connect to that history, and have an impact in our own country in their way."

Whatever that way is, we want them to give back and make America as capable as it can be as a country with our form of democracy.

The first block of accepted students is slated to begin in March, with eligibility from youth in both the U.S. and Europe—including schools abroad that have many ex-pats.

For more information visit NormandyLeadershipProgram.com.