World War II Weekend

From Admiral Chester Nimitz to war correspondent Ernie Pyle, the guest speakers for Eisenhower National Historic Site’s 2023 WWII Weekend will highlight a variety of fascinating stories covering the war in 1943 and its impact on our world today. Each program will be followed by a book signing.

At 2:30 pm in the Eisenhower National Historic Site Speaker’s Tent, David Chrisinger will be reading from his latest work, The Soldier’s Truth: Ernie Pyle and the Story of World War II.

At the height of his fame and influence during the Second World War, Ernie Pyle’s nationally syndicated dispatches from the front lines helped shape America’s understanding of what the war felt like to ordinary soldiers, as no writer’s work had before—or since. From North Africa to Sicily, from the beaches of Anzio to Normandy, and on to the war in the Pacific, where he would meet his untimely end, Pyle had a genius for humanizing the soldiers he met overseas by capturing the full gamut of emotions and experiences they were enduring.

David Chrisinger is the executive director of the Public Policy Writing Workshop at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and the director of writing seminars for The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reporting on the human impact of military service. He is the author of several books, including Stories Are What Save Us: A Survivor’s Guide to Writing about Trauma and Public Policy Writing That Matters, which received the 2022 National Council of Teachers of English George Orwell Award.