'Kilroy was here' CMU students and faculty to travel to Normandy
For the last week, chalk drawings of a man looking over a wall with the words “Kilroy was Here” have been visible around Central Michigan University's campus. Why? Because students from the museum department put them there.
Jay Martin, director of the museum department said the cartoon is from World War II.
“It may be not only one of the earliest memes, but one of the longest running ever,” Martin said.
The students from the museum department who have been drawing “Kilroy” around campus are doing it to draw attention to a couple different things.
First, Martin said, they want people to be curious. By looking it up, they’re hoping students get a better understanding of the history and significance behind what they’ve probably seen in other contexts.
“I would bet that most people have seen it somewhere,” Martin said.
He added that if you have seen the 2014 movie “Fury” starring Brad Pitt or played “Call of Duty WWII,” you have seen it.
There are several theories about where the original cartoon “Kilroy was here” came from, Martin said, but there’s one theory that’s more plausible than the others.
“There’s some debate about how this meme got started, but I also saw it earlier in my career when I was restoring ships,” Martin said.
The ship he was restoring in 2003 was a warship from WWII that had “Kilroy was Here” marked on the walls and artillery. Martin said this led him to support the theory that “Kilroy” was originally a stamp of approval from a weapons inspector named Kilroy.
Regardless of what the full backstory is, “Kilroy” became a larger symbol for American pride. Martin said it was humor in the midst of a horrible war, and because any man, woman or child could recreate it, its popularity grew.
“What Kilroy came to mean was that Americans had been here, and it became a source of pride,” Martin said.
The other reason for the “Kilroys” on campus, Martin said, is to get military science students excited for their spring break visit to Normandy, France.
The visit to Normandy
Lieutenant Colonel John Bacon is the chair of the Department of Military Science and Leadership. He’s leading cadets from the military science program at CMU, along with Ferris State University and Northwood University on a trip to Normandy over spring break.
“What we’re doing is we’re visiting several stops across Normandy and France as well as the city of Paris, specifically focused on D-Day, June 6, 1944,” Bacon said.
Bacon said the cadets who are attending have been researching specific topics related to D-Day and WWII events in France and will present on them during their visit to the locations their research talks about.
Martin, along with two students from the museum department and French faculty member Christi Brookes, will be there to provide more historical context.
“The major purpose is to be educational,” Bacon said. “It actually is a requirement for cadets I have who are commissioning as second lieutenants in the United States Army to attend a staff ride and that’s what we’re going on.”
Bacon said that in learning history, cadets will also be learning applicable skills.
“We actually go to a physical location where a battle was fought, where we get to walk the ground and share the lessons learned based on the research they’ve done since the fall semester and to be able to apply and describe that to possible future operations,” Bacon said.
One of the military science students doing the staff ride is Cadet Command Sergeant Major and CMU senior Alejandro Rios, who has a personal connection to the D-Day battle. The division he previously served in was historically part of the battle efforts on D-Day.
“One of the major reasons that I really wanted to go on this trip (was because) I served in the 82nd Airborne Division for four years and my unit that I was serving with was actually the unit that landed right outside of St. Mere Eglise, and they (in 1944) were the ones that actually captured the city during the invasion of D-Day,” Rios said.
St. Mere Eglise is near the coast where paratroopers landed during the battle on D-Day to liberate the French town from German occupation during WWII.
“I’m really excited to learn more about what they (82nd Division) actually saw and what it was like, and I’m really excited to be able to see the beach to see what that great generation had to experience and what they fought against, what they dealt with being thousands of miles away,” Rios said.
Bacon also said that he wants the cadets to learn about being a team, and to understand that there were other countries and forces that made sacrifices during the same battle as part of the entire allied effort.
Another aspect that Bacon said he wanted to emphasize was morality.
“A big point we’re trying to drive home is to be able to not only learn from a tactical and operational perspective, and to honor those who lost their lives or who fought, but when we do fight, to do so morally and ethically,” Bacon said.
