Teaching Kids About Liberty
How will they learn to love America in times like these?

Denver (June 27) –How do we teach our children that their freedom is built on the backs of thousands of men and women who fought and died to ensure a stable future? More than 218,000 American military soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are buried or memorialized as missing overseas? Why does it matter that we remember and honor them?

The future of the Free World depends on the next generation knowing what’s required to protect and sustain individual liberty. It’s too easy to take freedom for granted.

Sir Winston Churchill famously opined, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” And General of the Armies, John Pershing said, “Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.”

The ABMF Past is Prologue Essay Contest for students ages 11–18 is a unique vehicle to teach the relevance of the past to their future.

ABMF Director of Youth Engagement Sue Kenfield is available for interview. Sue’s background includes more than 20 years in corporate management and sales in the healthcare industry. Recently, before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, she served as interim executive director, a children’s home, which reinforced her belief that children want to learn and thrive.

Sue will discuss why the lessons of America’s foreign wars are relevant to today’s youth and give an overview of the ABMF Past is Prologue Essay Contest.

• $5,000 First Prize, $2,500 Second Prize and $1,500 Third Prize is awarded to the winners in each of three age groups.
• Students are asked to contemplate two mandatory questions about what we should learn from a battle in WWI or WWII, and how it is relevant to their life today.
• Each student must have an adult editor to discuss the topic and their answers to the mandatory questions – and check spelling, punctuation and grammar

Students compete within their own age group: 11–12 years; 13–15 years; and 16–18 years. They may write about one of three topics:

• American volunteer aviators of the WWI Lafayette Escadrille squadron whose daring maneuvers and innovative techniques changed aerial warfare;
• The brutal six–months WWII Battle of Guadalcanal that turned the course of the war in the Pacific theater; or,
• The WWII Operation Dragoon, which secured Allied supply routes in the French ports of Marseille and Toulon.

Essays due by October 1. Details, Application Form: Past Is Prologue Essay Contest – ABMF

The American Battle Monument Foundation (abmf.org) is the official nonprofit partner of the American Battle Monuments Commission (abmc.gov), the federal agency responsible for all 26 American military cemeteries and 32 monuments overseas.

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