by Ellen Butterfield | May 14, 2015 | News Slider
Nearly 400 letters from a German prisoner of war camp near Chattanooga have been donated to the Beaman Library, where a Lipscomb professor is working to translate them in time for a program in the autumn to observe the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The letters were donated by Curtis Peters, who discovered the letters, drawings and photos jammed in a Cornflakes box while cleaning out the house of his wife’s great aunt after she died. The road to Lipscomb for the letters began when Dr. Tim Johnson was in Chattanooga doing historical research into the Mexican War. A woman in a local cafe recognized the Lipscomb professor’s passion for history and introduced him to Peters, who said he hoped the letters could be translated, giving him more insight into his family’s history. That’s when Lipscomb foreign language professor Charlie McVey was contacted, due to his extensive training in German, and the library received the grant that will enable him to translate the letters. Working on these letters shifted his perspective of POW camps in general, McVey said. “I was just flabbergasted that these people were writing these letters back and were so effusively thankful and grateful,” McVey said. “Of course, also in these letters they’re asking for things,” McVey said. “One guy even puts his foot down on the paper and outlined his shoe saying ‘This is the size shoe I need.'” Going from being treated well by the Stribling family, who extended Christian character to their prisoners, to going back to a Germany in shambles was a shock, according to what McVey has...
by Brianne Welch | Nov 10, 2014 | News Slider
Lipscomb’s Veteran Services hosted a Veterans Eve Celebration that involved a parachute demonstration onto the quad Monday morning. The 101st Airborne Division, the Army’s oldest parachute jump team, flew through the air above campus before two jumpers, one carrying a POW flag and the other the American flag, descended onto the field. Students and members of the community lined the sidewalks around the quad in front of the Burton Science building to watch the demonstration. Prior to the jump, the national anthem was performed by the Lipscomb Jazz Ensemble. Then Lipscomb student and Marine Corps Corporal Matt Proctor gave the invocation. As part of the ceremony, an American flag was presented to veteran Christopher Long, and a Tennessee state flag was presented to Dean Scott McDowell. Before the end of the ceremony, Lieutenant Colonel John Sapp spoke about the event and about the importance of Lipscomb’s Yellow Ribbon Program that allows veterans to come home and receive an education. He also talked about being thankful for veterans as well, and Dean McDowell closed out the ceremony with a round of thanks. Lipscomb’s Yellow Ribbon Program works hard to create an encouraging and beneficial community for veterans. Corporal Proctor talked a little bit about how they hope to build a connection between veterans and traditional undergraduate students. “There’s an opportunity for those undergraduate’s to see the life experience that veterans have, and the face of war is sometimes very different than the faces of a traditional undergraduate student,” Proctor said. “There’s a lot that can be learned in order to communicate outside of the undergraduate experience.” Proctor was also very...
