George Edwin Williams

 This will be brief, but I hope powerful.

As most of you know, one of my retirement hobbies, besides writing, is genealogy.  I've had some good luck finding relatives and other friends. I try to spend a few minutes, some days it is a couple hours, on the Genealogical site run by the Church of the Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).  The address is familysearch.org and it is a wealth of information.

I have found information I didn't expect to find, and I've gone down a few, well, more than a few rabbit holes and come up empty.  This afternoon I was chasing after a potential relative named Williams, who was born, I think, in western Arkansas in the early 1900's.

As I dove headfirst into the rabbit hole, I did not find the individual I was looking for in the hundreds of potential matches provided.  But I did find was something more meaningful.  Something that caused me to pause, and under my breath whisper, "wow."

We know very little about George Edwin Williams. FamilySearch says he was born "about 1923," in Arkansas.  No town given, no county listed, no middle name shown, no record of who his parents were.

The next line was the powerful one in what it revealed.  So powerful it gave me pause in what I was doing.

George Edwin Williams died June 6, 1944 in Normandy, France.

You know exactly what that line means.  I stared at it for at least a minute.  Was he killed on one of the boats that brought him in?  Which beach was he on?  Juno?  Omaha?  Utah?  Was he gunned down while running on the beach?  Was he killed while caught in barbed wire?  Did he step on a mine?  Was he killed while attempting to climb to the top of one of the hills?  We may never know what happened to him.

We think he was 20 or 21 years old.  A lifetime ahead of him as part of "The Greatest Generation."  But it was a life that ended in sacrifice for the country he loved.  A country he fought for, a country he died for.

A single entry on one of the millions of records on this website.

George Edwin Williams died June 6, 1944 in Normandy, France.

Nearly 81 years later, we thank him for his service and we honor his sacrifice.