Students visit soldier's grave

BRUSHTON — Every Memorial Day, Americans pause to honor the soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives in the military service of their country.

This year, thanks to a chance encounter at a local health club, Memorial Day will take on a new meaning for a group of French language students from Brushton-Moira Central School.

During their visit to an American military cemetery in France, the students found the grave of a local soldier killed in action helping to liberate that country from the Nazis during World War II.

'HE WAS SO YOUNG'

Junior W. McFaul was born in October 1924 in the Franklin County town of Duane, the first child of William P. and Emma Benware McFaul. His sister, Kathryn Burnelle, born six years later, still remembers her big brother 65 years after his death.

"He was very quiet," she said. "He didn't drink or smoke. Our entertainment as kids was skiing, skating and tobogganing."

Junior attended Duane Country School before moving on to Franklin Academy, Malone. His sister said he left school during his junior year and was drafted into the Army. He entered active duty on Dec. 7, 1943, two years to the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and was sent to Camp Blanding, Fla., for basic training.

After completing basic, he was assigned to the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. Before his overseas deployment, he traveled to Duane for a short leave, but caught pneumonia.

"He came home at Easter," Kathryn remembered. "But he was in the hospital in Watertown for three-quarters of his leave. He finally came home to say goodbye to us before shipping overseas."

His family never saw him again.

Pvt. Junior W. McFaul was killed in action in Normandy, France, on July 26, 1944, after nine days in battle. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and promoted to sergeant at age 19.

"He was so young," Kathryn said. "My parents were not expecting this."

She said the family wrestled with the decision of where to bury him, before finally deciding to have him interred at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mere, France. The site overlooks Omaha Beach, where American, Canadian and other Allied troops stormed ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

"It was a big decision not to bring his body home," Kathryn said. "The undertaker suggested not to do so because my father would have had a nervous breakdown."

So Junior was laid to rest in northwestern France, surrounded by his fallen comrades, but thousands of miles away from his home, family and friends.

PARLEZ VOUS FRANCAIS?

One March morning, Malone resident Dilys Heinssen, Junior's niece and Kathryn's daughter, went to Curves for her usual exercise session. Curves employee Melissa Gokey happened to mention that she was chaperoning a trip to France and wanted to know if anyone in the exercise class knew of any local residents buried in one of the American military cemeteries there.

Ms. Heinssen told Ms. Gokey about her uncle and gave her the location of Junior's grave. Ms. Gokey promised to try to find it.

So for spring break, six Brushton-Moira Central School French language students — Derek Gokey, Nick Ivanoff, Chad Rockhill, Hattie Taylor, Jacob Taylor and William Webber — along with several chaperones, took off for Europe with two goals: to hone their French language skills, and to find the grave of a local war hero.

As for the first goal, the youths — all of whom have at least three or more years of French studies under their belts — enjoyed reasonable success.

"Speaking French was easy for me. I've always had a knack for it," William said.

His biggest challenge was explaining the concept of tipping, in French, to a waitress who had never heard of such a thing. Tips are included in restaurant prices in much of Europe.

"We found that most people could speak some English," Jacob said. "We'd communicate as much as possible in French and say the rest in English."

He termed this hybrid language "Franglais."

SEARCH FOR A GRAVE

Their recollections are far more serious and somber when it came to their second objective.

"The cemetery was overwhelming," Hattie said, noting the closely manicured grounds and the seemingly endless array of white crosses, interspersed with occasional Stars of David, marking the soldiers' graves.

"The ocean of white crosses was surreal," her brother Jacob said, adding that the individual graves were arranged like "Roman battalions."

"You can't begin to comprehend the death toll until you see all the graves going on forever," Nick said.

"We went to the cliffs those guys had to climb under fire," Derek said. "It's hard to imagine how they did it, with machine guns and bombs going off all around them."

The process of finding Junior's headstone proved arduous. The Normandy American Cemetery spans 172 acres and contains almost 9,400 graves. The teens knew, however, that Junior's grave was the fourth one in his row, so they split up and walked through the aisles between each section of graves, eyeing the fourth headstone in each row. But the task proved frustrating.

"We got to the point where we didn't know what to say," Melissa Gokey said. "We couldn't come back and say we didn't find the grave."

In the end, Hattie saved the day.

"We kept looking at all the rows," she said. "Finally, I saw one and called out, 'What was the name again?'"

Sure enough, it was Junior's final resting place.

ANOTHER MEMORIAL

The group returned with several mementos for Kathryn and Ms. Heinssen: a vial of sand from Omaha Beach, hundreds of photographs, and a panoramic video of the view from Junior's grave site.

As for the students, William said he wants to be a French teacher, while all of them plan to return to France at some point.

Though Junior remains at rest in France, his presence lingers in northern Franklin County. Many members of the McFaul family are buried in the family plot at Duane-Ladd Cemetery on Red Tavern Road, County Route 26. Junior's parents, William and Emma, forsook their own headstone, making it instead a monument to their fallen son by adding the inscription: "Sgt. Junior W. McFaul, 1924-1944, killed and buried in France."

William and Emma died in 1982 and 1988, respectively. They are buried nearby under simple ground markers.

"My parents had such big plans for my brother," Kathryn said. "They never got over this."