Erica Swenson, a Whittier Middle School teacher in Poland, was chosen to research Clark, who was killed at age 21, and to create a lesson plan as a way for others to teach about the war.

The website of 21 lesson plans, including Swenson’s, is made possible by the National History Day, the American Battle Monuments Commission and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. The plans are available on Veterans Day at www.ABMCeducation.org.

To research Clark’s experience and learn why the Dutch people still maintain graves of American soldiers, Swenson and other teachers visited war memorials in Europe during the summer. Her lesson plan is called, “Honoring Sacrifice: Examining Why Dutch People Have Adopted the Graves of American Service Members” in the Netherlands.

The Sun Journal wrote about Swenson in May. Her completed profile shares how Stanley Clark was the youngest of 12 children, and five of his brothers served in WWII before him.

In a daring move, Clark joined the all-volunteer Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR), which were called “Flying Coffins.” The gliders were released from planes as a way to get troops and supplies behind enemy lines.

Swenson’s profile says that GIR members were brave.

“The gliders did not have engines, so they had to be pulled and released from transport planes such as the C-46 or C-47,” Swenson wrote. “Once free of the tow plane, the men in the plywood and fabric gliders found themselves in a precarious situation: they had no parachutes, they were crammed together with supplies and equipment (like jeeps and ammunition), and they knew that once their glider began its landing descent, there was no going back.”

A profile of a young, fallen World War II hero, Army Pvt. Stanley Clark of Lewiston, is available on the website, http://abmceducation.org/understandingsacrifice/soldier/stanley-clark.

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