Marquette Students Research Local Veterans for National History Day ‘Silent Heroes’ Project

U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Johanna Elizabeth Balla Baskin Butt charted a military career for herself at a time when it was uncommon for a woman to do so.

The St. Louis native served in World War II, working with General George S. Patton’s Third Army and even getting to meet Gen. Patton. She returned home after the war and started a family, unaware that she was still on reserve status: that is, until she received a letter from President Harry S. Truman calling her back into service for the Korean War.

Now, a group of eight Marquette High students is making it their mission to research and tell the life stories of Baskin Butt and U.S. Army Private First Class Calvin Gilmore Jr., an East St. Louis native, as part of this year’s National History Day (NHD) Silent Heroes program, “Untold Stories from the Korean War.”

“Her entire life was basically about the military,” said junior Rohan Deshpande. “I feel like that kind of strength and determination to go back and help your country is something we should learn and apply today.”

Gifted education teacher Megan Burian, the Marquette NHD sponsor, is one of 48 educators from around the country who was selected to participate in this year’s program. She and her students chose two Korean War-era veterans from underrepresented communities who are buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery to research.

In addition to collaborating with each other, they are meeting monthly with historian Dr. Christopher Hamner of George Mason University to study the Korean War and learn more about the experiences of underrepresented veterans. In April, the students will present a eulogy and biography of the two veterans at their gravesites at Jefferson Barracks.

Burian said she is working with the Marquette Air Force Junior ROTC club for a special presentation in the spring and hopes to involve local veteran groups as well.

“I am super excited about this project,” she said. “I knew it was something many of our students who have done NHD would be excited to research. I love any opportunity I can get to get into historical research, too. And my husband and dad are veterans, so this was a good personal connection for me.”

Marquette’s research team – Burian, Deshpande, sophomores Dhruv Chakravarthula, Mithra Menon, Amanda Moi, Siddharth Sawant and Yvette Yaroshenko and freshmen Mahesh Boddapati and Siya Taneja – meet during AcLab periods to coordinate their work.

They are poring through online databases, old newspaper clippings and audio and video interviews to present a full picture of these two veterans and their time and place -- the bustling manufacturing hub of East St. Louis that Gilmore left to serve; Baskin Butt’s proxy marriage that necessitated a stand-in groom while her husband was stationed in Germany flying fighter planes.

Such proxy marriages were not legal in Missouri at the time, so she had to travel to Kansas to do it.

“The aspect that I really like is the fact that, when you think about a historical topic, it’s abstract,” Sawant said. “When you start researching it, you see all of these primary sources, pictures and firsthand accounts. Through research, it becomes a little bit more real.”

The students are also working with Burian on separate projects for this spring’s NHD competition. Deshpande, Boddapati, Sawant, Yaroshenko, Chakravarthula and Moi all qualified for nationals last summer, with Deshpande and Boddapati earning prizes.

NHD gives the students the opportunity to explore their favorite historical topics in more depth and to further flesh out the people, places and events they learn about in class.

"When you’re in class, everything looks like it was set in stone, was always meant to happen that way,” Boddapati said. “When you start looking into it, history often hangs on one moment, like ‘what if?’ Sometimes it comes down to one person’s actions upon which the fate of the entire world depends. What would the world look like? How would it be different?”

For the “Silent Heroes” project, the students expect the Jefferson Barracks presentation to be a poignant, meaningful moment, especially with as much as they’ve come to learn about the veterans they will be eulogizing.

“We have researched their lives in such depth that being able to be there and see them, it will help us connect with them more,” Moi said. “Even though we don’t know them personally, we’ve learned so much about them that it feels like we do.”

“I’m seeing this as an opportunity to pay respect and share their life," Menon added. "But also because not many people know about them, it’s about respecting what they did and bringing an awareness."