NORMANDY, France — Twenty-eight years ago, history teacher Steve Werle got a lesson of his own.
“There was a stack of papers on my desk, right here, this stack of papers,” Werle said.
The director of the school had left him the story of Virgil Tangborn.
“He will not participate in the test. He will not participate in the AP exam,” Werle said.
But in many ways, Virgil’s diary is more important than any exam, because it reminds us how precious and precarious life can be.
“It was a diary of his thoughts and feelings, before Pearl Harbor and after,” Werle said. “When he realizes he’s getting involved in this event.”
Werle has his students read it as part of their studies on World War II at the Academy of Holy Angels.
‘Maybe I’ll be back in a week. Maybe I’ll be back by the end of this decade. No one knows until I go to Fort Snelling,” Virgil wrote.
Virgil survived the Allied invasion, but just eight days after arriving in France he was killed by the Germans while trying to rescue a fellow soldier from a burning truck.
“It’s interesting. I get teary sometimes when I talk about this,” Werle said.
One of the last things Virgil wrote was that his father thought he should work in education after the war. In a sense, Werle contributed to this.
“And I always tell the kids that in some ways he became a teacher. He taught me a lot about sacrifice, a lot about service and putting off your hopes and dreams for something much bigger,” Werle said.
Like Werle, Wayne Hoff has a vested interest in Virgil’s legacy. Virgil was his mother’s brother, his uncle.
“She talked about him a lot,” Hoff said. ‘He was just very kind and gentle. That’s the impression I got from him.’
It’s a big reason why Hoff fought for decades to save the small school his uncle attended in Nary, Minnesota. He even received subsidies to keep the building intact.
If Virgil had survived the war, Hoff believes he might have returned to Nary to teach in that same building.
‘We must try to learn from history that war is never a good way to solve things. We must try to work for peace. I’m sure Virgil would want the same thing,” Hoff said.
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Nary isn’t the only town that continues to honor Virgil. Across the Atlantic Ocean in Perrier, France, a monument was built with Virgil in mind.
Christian Levaufre’s father insisted on this monument and it was finally built twenty years ago. Virgil is one of four soldiers highlighted for helping to liberate Pierrer in 1944. It is an act of courage that is still taught in nearby schools.
“We think it is – if not the most beautiful – one of the most beautiful memorials dedicated to the soldiers,” Levaufre said.
And it’s not far from Virgil’s grave.
Virgil’s life was cut short by the war, but his legacy lives on: in France, in Nary and in Werle’s classroom.
