FROM PREVIOUS PAGE “For people my age, we grew up in the
shadow of the war,” says O’Connor, whose father served in the Pacific and whose uncle participat- ed in the invasion of Sicily, “but for young people now, it’s ancient history.” O’Connor spent several years compiling the 46-page A Loyola Rome Student’s Guide to World War II in Rome & Italy. The guide uses information about key landmarks, such as Palazzo Venezia and Montecassino, to weave a narrative of Italy during the war. O’Connor provides directions to the sites and “Amazing Facts” that enrich and personalize the guide. “I wanted to do something for students who had an interest in the war, something to point them in the right direction,” he says. The first edition of the guide was finished in 2003. O’Connor currently consults on energy and
insurance regulatory issues, served as director of the Illinois Department of Insurance, as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, and as a member of the Illinois State Board of Elections. He holds a PhD in political science from North- western. In 2007, he spent a year serving the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity. An active JFRC alumnus and founding member of the alumni board, O’Connor wasn’t satisfied with just writing a guide and posting it online. In a discussion with a former JFRC director, he suggested traveling to Rome to give tours in person. Jim Centner, a retired naval officer, former
instructor in military history at West Point, and fellow member of the JFRC alumni board, heard about O’Connor’s project and offered to share his expertise. The two have worked as a team since 2004, usually alternating semesters, to provide students with an invaluable, on-site history of WWII. O’Connor and Centner worked with JFRC staff
and faculty members to construct a short tour and course to introduce students to Italy during the war. “The World War II program is part of our mission to create compassionate and coura- geous leaders,” says Emilio Iodice, vice president and director, John Felice Rome Center. “We decided on a short and concentrated program that includes lectures, tours of battlefields, sites in Rome dealing with the liberation, the Nazi oppression and murder of civilians, a visit to a museum, and of course, the American cemetery at Nettuno, south of Rome.” “When we bring students to Nettuno, where
8,000 Americans are buried, we point out that the vast majority of those soldiers were about the same age as our students when they died,” says Centner. “Unfortunately, they saw a com- pletely different Italy than the one our students
JFRC students pay their respects at a military cemetary in Nettuno, Italy. Jim Center and Phil O’Connor are to the far right.
Loyolans who gave their lives in Italy in WWII, from left: Pvt. John Joseph Burke, Lt. John Leo Carmody, Lt. Kenneth Elmer Krucks, Lt. Dean Philip Reinert, and Pvt. Thomas Anthony McKitrick
see. And this is something Phil and I stress. Be- cause of the sacrifices made by these men, suc- cessive generations have been able to see Italy the right way, under the right circumstances.” For the seventh edition of his guide, O’Connor
is highlighting five of the thousands of Ameri- cans who died fighting in the war: Dean Reinert, John Burke, John Carmody, Kenneth Krucks, and Anthony McKitrick. These men, alumni of Loyola University Chicago and Loyola Academy, each gave their lives fighting on Italian soil. One of them—Burke—is buried at Nettuno. When visiting the site, JFRC students lay a wreath on his grave. “What I really hope is that by visiting these
sites and learning the history, the events of World War II become more concrete for these students,” says O’Connell. “I try to put the stu- dents into the shoes—the boots—of these other young people, 60-plus years ago. I try to get them to ask themselves how they would have
acted in those same circumstances.” In fact, the JFRC itself would not exist were it
not for another WWII veteran. At the outbreak of the war, John Felice, a Maltese native, entered the British Army, became an intelligence officer and was attached to a U.S. Army Air Corps in preparation for the invasion of Sicily. After Sicily was won, he took his American comrades on tours of the Greek ruins in Sicily where he was impressed by both their naiveté and their endless curiosity. It was Felice’s first experience with what would be his life’s work: introducing Americans to Europe. Felice surely would have been pleased with
that anonymous Italian veteran who picked up a young Phil O’Connor 40 years ago, and who, in a spirit of gratitude, showed Phil the burial ground of his American countrymen. It is fitting, then, that O’Connor and Centner now take their turn keeping history alive for another generation— and for tomorrow’s scholars.
SUMMER 2010
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