The Central Pennsylvania WWII Roundtable’s program with WWII pilot Alan Shapiro, age 101, is canceled.
Instead, they will welcome Rachel Yarnell Thompson, the Marshall Historian at The George C. Marshall International Center, located on the site of Marshall’s museum home in Leesburg, Virginia. In 2014, the Center published Ms. Thompson’s full-length biography, Marshall: A Statesman Shaped in the Crucible of War. She lectures extensively on various aspects of Marshall’s illustrious career as soldier and statesman, giving presentations in many venues that have included the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, the United States Embassy in Paris, state conferences for both the Wisconsin and Colorado National Guards, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY. In 2009, Thompson curated the Marshall Center’s exhibition, “With Affection and Admiration: The Correspondence of George C. Marshall and Winston S. Churchill.” Beginning in 2001, she created, designed, and for thirteen years implemented a week-long Marshall Immersion Workshop with an emphasis on the European Recovery Program for secondary level teachers from across the United States and Europe. In conjunction with seminars sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and Defense, Ms. Thompson also periodically conducts meetings at the Center linked to Marshall’s mid-twentieth century leadership roles.
Before beginning her tenure at the George C. Marshall International Center, Ms. Thompson wrote educational materials to accompany several PBS (Public Broadcasting Systems) video productions, and authored teacher’s guides, essays, journal articles, and lessons for the educational outreach programs of the National Council for the Social Studies, the White House Historical Association, USA Today, Time-Life, and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. Ms. Thompson was for thirty-one years a U.S. History and American Government teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia. A 1962 graduate of Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, she holds a master’s degree from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Although a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Ms. Thompson makes her home in Ashburn, Virginia, an outlying suburb of Washington, D.C.
The Central Pennsylvania WWII Roundtable is a vibrant community and non-profit that brings together veterans, historians, students, and community members to explore, preserve, and discuss the history of World War II. Through lectures, film screenings, discussions, and community events, the Roundtable keeps alive the voices and lessons of the Greatest Generation. Their monthly meetings are free of charge and feature speakers, mostly WWII veterans and authors, on topics relevant to WWII. Attendance ranges from 150-350 participants. Meetings are open to all, no membership is required.
