As long as human beings have existed, so too have infectious diseases. These invisible foes of humanity have proliferated and thrived across history, claiming the lives of untold billions across human history.
The Covid-19 Pandemic illustrated to people living today the all too real prevalence of infectious diseases on human societies, but this relevance is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, over 100 years ago the 1918 Influenza Pandemic devasted the United States and the world. From September to December 1918 alone, over 250,000 people died in the United States from the deadly disease. The influence of diseases on history are visible across the 35 acres of the cemetery in the form of the various graves and memorials left behind by their victims.
To explore the influence of disease on history, please join us this November for a Cemetery Speaker series event, with a presentation from a local historian coupled with a thematic tour of the grounds from one of our docents.
Tickets are only $5 and all proceeds benefit our non-profit mission of historical preservation and education. Space is limited so be sure to reserve your spot today! Keynote remarks will take place either outside or inside the Chapel, weather depending, and the walking tour will take place on the grounds. The tour is approximately 45 minutes in length. Please come prepared with comfortable clothing and shoes, as the tours often stray from the main paths.
The event is rain or shine. Smoking is prohibited and dogs are not allowed to attend the event unless they are a service animal.
Our Speaker:
Andy Jampoler
Andy Jampoler lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Suzy, a geographer and cartographer. Until recently, Suzy has raised seeing eye dog puppies for New York’s Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind.
Andy is an alumnus of Columbia College and the School of International and Public Affairs, both of Columbia University, in New York City, and of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute’s School of Language Study.
After completing flight training, during twenty-plus years on active duty in the U.S. Navy that followed, Andy served on the personal staffs of the chief of naval operations, the secretary of defense, and the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, and also on the ground in Vietnam. He commanded Patrol Squadron Nineteen and Naval Air Station Moffett Field. Later he was a senior sales and marketing executive with German and American aerospace companies.
Andy has been researching and writing non-fiction books for the past twenty years. A review in the Wall Street Journal described his first book, Adak, The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586, as “an adventure story to rival the best you’ve ever read.” His seventh book from the Naval Institute Press, Embassy to the Eastern Courts, about the secret missions in the 1830s that constituted America’s now forgotten first “pivot toward Asia” during Andrew Jackson’s administration, was published by the Press in November 2015. His most recent book, Hard Aground, which is about the short life and sudden destruction of the cruiser USS Memphis a century ago, was released by the University of Alabama Press in 2022.
Andy has given illustrated talks on the subjects of his books, articles, and historical research to audiences at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, at the Smithsonian Institution, and other museums in the U.S. and abroad, also at embassies and academic symposia, in book stores, and on board cruise ships sailing the oceans of the world. Some are available on the website of C-SPAN TV.
To learn more about the Cemetery Speaker Series, check out our main page HERE.
