Equipped with a Ph.D. in history from Yale and a lifetime of storytelling experience, Arnie Pritchard paints a picture of his father's WWII experience:

"Some time ago I inherited my father's World War II Army footlocker.  It contained hundred of letters and other documents from his time in the Army, and from working for the United Nations refugee and displaced persons program in Europe after the war.  The letters, mostly to his parents in Rhode Island, are vivid and insightful. They portray a young man who had rarely been outside New England as he adjusted to a new way of life - to new places and new people, to fear, to his role as a leader, and to a world both wider and more brutal than anything he had known. 

From a small part of these letters I have created a story about my father's time in the European theater in 1944-45. This is street-level history, from the viewpoint not of the high command or of grand strategy, but of someone in the front lines, with little grasp of the big picture, trying to survive and get the job done - and trying to keep his humanity in the midst of danger, chaos, and cruelty."

Join us to hear that story.

Registration Required

A million thanks to the Friends of the Cheshire Public Library for sponsoring this program!