Latest / Stories That Live In Us / We'll Always Keep Searching (with Emily Paulson) | Episode 10

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We'll Always Keep Searching (with Emily Paulson) | Episode 10 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:02
  Emily Paulson: One very unique part of my job is I get to learn about every has person that has paid the ultimate price for our freedom.
• 0:13
  Emily Paulson: I get to learn about their stories and their families and and their final moments, but also the 23 years prior to that that made their final moments so significant.
• 0:26
  Crista Cowan: Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future.
• 0:34
  Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:38
  Crista Cowan: I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.
• 0:56
  Crista Cowan: My guest today is Emily Paulson.
• 0:57
  Crista Cowan: She is a contractor with the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency.
• 0:59
  Crista Cowan: That's a mouthful.
• 1:00
  Crista Cowan: Their acronym is DPAA, like all government agencies with a good acronym.
• 1:03
  Crista Cowan: It is a part of the DOD, also known as the Department of Defense, and you're going to hear about the work that Emily does in this episode.
• 1:16
  Crista Cowan: I wanted to talk to her because 2024, June 6th, is the 80th anniversary of D-Day here in the United States, and the work that she does with military families in the organization that she works with is so meaningful and so moving and so full of individual and family stories that I thought you would like to hear this conversation with Emily.
• 1:53
  Crista Cowan: I know Emily because she worked with me at Ancestry.
• 1:55
  Crista Cowan: It was one of her very first jobs as a young woman and she came in with a passion for family history and genealogy, and DNA was bursting on the scene and she dove headfirst into that, and not only did it help shape her career, but it forged a relationship between us.
• 2:10
  Crista Cowan: I adore her.
• 2:12
  Crista Cowan: I think you are going to adore her as well.
• 2:14
  Crista Cowan: Not only is she a brilliant mind, but she is also a fantastic storyteller.
• 2:19
  Crista Cowan: Emily, I am so glad you are here.
• 2:23
  Crista Cowan: I feel like I haven't seen you forever, but I do follow your adventures in Omaha on Instagram, which is a lot of fun.
• 2:32
  Emily Paulson: It is.
• 2:32
  Emily Paulson: It's lovely to see you.
• 2:33
  Emily Paulson: I think that, as I don't think we've your journey into family history, what is it that got?
• 2:47
  Crista Cowan: you started interested in genealogy, and what did that look like for you?
• 2:51
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, I'd love to tell you my dad was always interested in family history.
• 2:54
  Emily Paulson: So I grew up with a microfilm reader in the house, but we were never allowed to touch it.
• 2:59
  Emily Paulson: And so it just you know, this big black box is in the corner.
• 3:03
  Emily Paulson: So I just always knew what it was, but I didn't really know much about it.
• 3:06
  Emily Paulson: And when I was 18, fresh out of high school, I got a job as a receptionist for a marketing company and they told me, like, once your work is done, you can do whatever you want.
• 3:16
  Emily Paulson: And I got really bored and so my dad suggested why don't you try doing genealogy and see if you like it?
• 3:22
  Emily Paulson: And my mom's adopted so she knows her birth family.
• 3:27
  Emily Paulson: But I didn't really know much about them other than my grandparents, and so I really wanted to learn where I came from, who they were and all of that.
• 3:36
  Emily Paulson: And so I dug into my second great grandma and I loved listening to your first episode, because you have Carrie and I have Francis, and so I just remember listening to your episode and just loved that.
• 3:49
  Emily Paulson: But, um, so I learned about Francis and her family and that just I got the bug so fast and so every single day at work.
• 3:57
  Emily Paulson: I would just do genealogy after I got all my other work done.
• 4:00
  Emily Paulson: And then I saw an internship application for Ancestry and I applied and I got it.
• 4:07
  Emily Paulson: And so then I came and worked with you and Lisa and everyone at Ancestry and it was a wild time.
• 4:15
  Crista Cowan: It was a wild time.
• 4:15
  Emily Paulson: It was wild it was the best two and a half years I think I've ever had at a job, and so it was lovely and a great experience and that's really.
• 4:24
  Emily Paulson: It's so short and I was so blessed to be able to even work at Ancestry and learn from you guys and just everything.
• 4:34
  Crista Cowan: So the time that you came to, by the time you came to Ancestry, you were basically just self-taught in family history, right?
• 4:42
  Emily Paulson: Correct yeah, and I'd only been doing it for about six months, which is crazy, when I think about it, to have landed such a large gig with barely you know, any information.
• 4:53
  Emily Paulson: But apparently I was good, I was like I was here.
• 4:59
  Crista Cowan: You were beyond good.
• 5:00
  Crista Cowan: As a matter of fact, I seem to recall us calling you a unicorn on more than one occasion, because your skills, your genealogical skills, were fantastic, and so, as we integrated you into our team during that time, we were working on I think we were working on long lost family, weren't we?
• 5:18
  Emily Paulson: Correct.
• 5:19
  Emily Paulson: And I mean we even you taught me genetic genealogy probably a month into my internship and we cut, like I cut my teeth on my grandmother's birth family and so that just were working on a television show helping others find their biological family members.
• 5:48
  Crista Cowan: Is there anything from that time?
• 5:50
  Crista Cowan: I mean, obviously you had your own family history mystery that you were able to solve, which is a celebration Any other cases that particularly stood out to you or anything about that time that you remember?
• 6:01
  Emily Paulson: I mean, it just felt like everyone I met during that time had some sort of family history mystery and it was like there are so many adoptees that we helped.
• 6:13
  Emily Paulson: And I remember you worked a case of an abandoned child and I just remember you solved it in like three hours and I to this day do not know how you did it, but it was just such a crucial part of my life to learn how like DNA worked in family dynamics and how it's broken down, and that really impacts my life today.
• 6:36
  Emily Paulson: But it was just so fascinating to see how the generations all map out with DNA.
• 6:44
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it's just a math problem and I was never a math person.
• 6:48
  Crista Cowan: My father will tell anyone who listens that.
• 6:51
  Crista Cowan: But the ability to kind of see the pattern of DNA just somehow worked for me, and I continue to try to figure out ways to teach that to people.
• 7:01
  Crista Cowan: And some people pick it up very quickly, like you did, and others it takes them a little bit longer.
• 7:07
  Crista Cowan: But I think it's possible for anyone to learn.
• 7:09
  Crista Cowan: It's a little bit like learning a new language.
• 7:11
  Crista Cowan: You just have to be willing to invest whatever time it is to do that.
• 7:14
  Crista Cowan: So you caught on very quickly and were able to be such an asset to our team during that time.
• 7:20
  Crista Cowan: Then you had the opportunity to move on and and you left Utah and went to Omaha, nebraska.
• 7:29
  Crista Cowan: And tell us a little bit about just the journey to find the current role that you have and what work you're doing now.
• 7:37
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, it's a wild story.
• 7:40
  Emily Paulson: About a year before I decided to leave Ancestry, there was a newspaper article from KSL about Brigham Young University partnering with the army to find family of missing service members and I thought that is the coolest job ever.
• 7:55
  Emily Paulson: If I ever wanted to do anything else, it was that.
• 7:58
  Emily Paulson: And so I just kind of put up like on a LinkedIn like alert system, like send me anything that has to do with this, and a position opened for a genealogist about a year later and I applied to it super lightning fast in college, like just typing it out, and about an hour later it closed and the position was filled and it wasn't me and so but I thought, you know, like what is this contracting company?
• 8:25
  Emily Paulson: I've never seen them, I've never heard of them.
• 8:27
  Emily Paulson: So I I looked into their job positions and they had an opening for a case coordinator and this.
• 8:33
  Emily Paulson: So I applied to this job and I got it and I was so surprised and I had to move to Omaha, nebraska, and I was very shocked by that, but it's a lovely place to live.
• 8:43
  Emily Paulson: So now I am a case coordinator.
• 8:45
  Emily Paulson: I'm a contractor for the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency, which is also known as DPAA.
• 8:52
  Emily Paulson: The DPAA is a defense agency under the Fourth Estate and our mission is to recover and identify missing service members from past conflicts, including World War II, through the Gulf Wars members from past conflicts, including World War II, through the Gulf Wars.
• 9:11
  Crista Cowan: No-transcript.
• 9:13
  Crista Cowan: 80 years now almost right, correct.
• 9:14
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, our mission is to never leave anyone behind and to never forget the sacrifice that these service members have made.
• 9:24
  Emily Paulson: It's an incredibly honorable and noble mission, and I'm so blessed to be a part of it.
• 9:33
  Crista Cowan: And yeah, what a great gig, yeah, and yeah, what a great gig, yeah.
• 9:37
  Crista Cowan: So tell us, if you can, the process of how the organization receives remains, or how they know somebody needs to be identified, and then, if you, can walk us through that process of how that works internally at the organization.
• 9:55
  Emily Paulson: So one thing I was unaware of is if you're in war and you go missing, you stay missing until you are accounted for, whether that's they find you at a prison camp or you pass away and are never located.
• 10:09
  Emily Paulson: And so even if they declare you as deceased, you're still missing.
• 10:15
  Emily Paulson: And there's an astonishing number of people missing.
• 10:18
  Emily Paulson: It's over 81,000 are missing from World War II to the Gulf, and 72,000 of those are just from World War II.
• 10:24
  Emily Paulson: And so, yeah, it's a crazy number.
• 10:28
  Emily Paulson: And so our agency has a list of all that are missing and we seek each of them depending on their situation.
• 10:35
  Emily Paulson: But there's three ways we can receive remains into our laboratory.
• 10:39
  Emily Paulson: The first would be a unilateral turnover, that's if someone out in the world found remains and they call us and turn over the remains that they found.
• 10:49
  Emily Paulson: The second would be an excavation that we either do organically with our own archaeologists and anthropologists, or we partner it out to a university and so they will go to the site of an incident and excavate to try to find remains.
• 11:05
  Emily Paulson: And then the third would be that we receive remains from disinterments.
• 11:09
  Emily Paulson: So we will go to cemeteries across the world and disinter remains from the cemetery.
• 11:16
  Crista Cowan: Are these like?
• 11:16
  Crista Cowan: So there was a battle or some kind of conflict and people were buried in like a mass grave situation, or they were just buried unidentified?
• 11:24
  Emily Paulson: That's a great question.
• 11:25
  Emily Paulson: After World War II there was it's called the American Graves Registration Command.
• 11:30
  Emily Paulson: They were tasked with finding all of the missing.
• 11:34
  Emily Paulson: And so if you're in a battle and you're retreating quickly and you cannot collect like remains and the enemy takes over the area, you're not going back into that area until you can take it back.
• 11:49
  Emily Paulson: And so a lot of times either the opposite side would bury the remains, civilians would bury the remains, or they would stay there and be buried in foxholes or different things.
• 12:01
  Emily Paulson: And so in the post-war years, this registration command, they would go through and find these remains and try to identify them, and they did an amazing job.
• 12:12
  Crista Cowan: Which theoretically sorry.
• 12:14
  Crista Cowan: Theoretically I think that they would be able to do that with like dog tags, right.
• 12:29
  Emily Paulson: Or other identifying things on the body did a phenomenal job.
• 12:33
  Emily Paulson: But for the remains that they could not identify, they marked them as an unknown and gave them an x number.
• 12:39
  Emily Paulson: So it's x and then it'll be a number, and then usually the cemetery that they were buried in.
• 12:44
  Emily Paulson: And so we have unknowns all over the world and they're buried in military cemeteries and they have a headstone and it's, they usually say, like known only to god, um and so or something like that.
• 12:58
  Emily Paulson: Um, in the punch bowl in the national cemetery, the national memorial cemetery of the pacific and honolulu, they're just marked as unknown.
• 13:06
  Emily Paulson: If they know anything about the conflict of where they came from, they'll also put that there, but most time they're just unknown.
• 13:13
  Crista Cowan: Just the enormity of the work to be done.
• 13:17
  Crista Cowan: Does that impact ever hit you?
• 13:22
  Emily Paulson: Yes, I mean our laboratory has, remains in it and I get to.
• 13:27
  Emily Paulson: You know, I witness everything that comes in and everything that is identified and everything.
• 13:33
  Emily Paulson: And so sometimes I'm like there's more, there's still more, and just I mean 72,000, 81,000 is an incredible number, but 72,000 just for one war is, is overwhelming, and you just think of the impact that has made across the world and generations.
• 13:54
  Emily Paulson: I mean it's 80 years later and we're still picking up the pieces of this mass war.
• 14:02
  Crista Cowan: And when you think about how each one of those 81,000 people comes from a family that is missing them, right, they know that they died in conflict or assume so, because they were never found, and the work of the agency, ultimately, is about restoring their identity, but it's also about giving that family information and closure.
• 14:28
  Emily Paulson: Exactly, and most families do know they are missing.
• 14:31
  Emily Paulson: We communicate with the families all the time.
• 14:33
  Emily Paulson: The families play a huge, huge part in what we do and what we can do.
• 14:37
  Emily Paulson: A lot of our identifications are based on DNA and so we have to have the family help us, and so we reach out to the family for DNA references through our service casualty offices, so that's Army, marines, navy and Air Force, and they communicate with the family.
• 14:55
  Emily Paulson: We also, as an agency, do family member updates every year.
• 15:00
  Emily Paulson: So they'll pick a city and do a certain mile radius around it and invite any family member that wants to come learn about their service member or just the agency in general, and they can have a one-on-one with a historian and go through all of the current updates of the case and anything that we're doing to try to identify.
• 15:17
  Crista Cowan: So you've described the way that you receive remains in the laboratory.
• 15:21
  Crista Cowan: You've talked a little bit about the families and how they are involved.
• 15:26
  Crista Cowan: I assume that they are involved because they know they have a missing service member and they're just trying to participate in any way in seeing that remains are identified.
• 15:36
  Crista Cowan: But ultimately they're looking for their family member.
• 15:40
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, you know, sometimes they don't know they're missing.
• 15:42
  Emily Paulson: We have to use very specific DNA, because the remains we have have been in the ground for so long that we have to use mitochondrial, which is a maternal dna, and then we also have to use ystr and auto um, which is very specific.
• 16:03
  Emily Paulson: So our mitochondrial dna has to go through the maternal line and so that's your mom's mom, mom, mom, and it goes down the way up that way too.
• 16:12
  Emily Paulson: So if the service member doesn't have any sisters and they don't have any aunts, we have to keep going until you can find a maternal donor.
• 16:24
  Emily Paulson: So sometimes our maternal donors can be third cousins once removed, and they don't even know who this person is, and so our service casualty offices will call them and tell them all about our you know our missing service member, and it's amazing to see that people who don't even know these people that knew they were even part of their family, are willing to help.
• 16:44
  Crista Cowan: So what it sounds like is happening is you have this list of those missing or killed in action and you're there's this parallel track of receiving remains and identifying the remains, but also using this list of missing and killed in action to build out family trees and to start to have a foundation of data so that when remains are received, they can there's a better chance that they can be identified.
• 17:09
  Crista Cowan: Did I get that right?
• 17:11
  Emily Paulson: Correct For, specifically for disinterments, our historians they're incredible.
• 17:16
  Emily Paulson: They will create short lists of people that they believe that that unknown is and then they will go out to our service casualty offices and say we need these.
• 17:26
  Emily Paulson: You know 15 people.
• 17:28
  Emily Paulson: We need references for these 15 people.
• 17:30
  Emily Paulson: We need at least 50% of family reference samples on file to disinter those remains of family reference samples on file.
• 17:39
  Emily Paulson: To disinter those remains so that it does create a better chance of identifying those remains.
• 17:41
  Emily Paulson: And it also, while having a family reference sample for a service member on file is important for that specific family of that service member, it also impacts the identifications of other service members, because if we can exclude one, it helps us make a stronger argument for another.
• 18:00
  Emily Paulson: And so it works both ways that you're not only helping yourself but you're also helping other families find their missing family member as well and I had this vague idea of what you did.
• 18:12
  Crista Cowan: But you're kind of blowing my mind as I start to think about all of the work that has to go into just identifying one person.
• 18:21
  Crista Cowan: And so this idea that these historians are looking at like a battlefield, for example, and there are records military and historical records that say who fought here, and we know who's already been identified, and so they start to develop this list of people who this could be and then intentionally go out and build out the family trees to try to find people, that who, who can provide DNA samples like the, the methodical process that has to go into that just lights up my genealogy brain and makes me just the order of it and the logic of it and the process of it Like it's possible to do that because of the technology that we have today, because of the skills of the people working in the organization there.
• 19:07
  Crista Cowan: That's just amazing to me that it's even possible that it can be done.
• 19:11
  Crista Cowan: But the manner in which it can be done is also so impressive that this all exists in that way.
• 19:19
  Crista Cowan: I'm sure you're geeking out about it too, and have since you've been working there.
• 19:23
  Emily Paulson: Oh, I mean, every day I am just blown away by what we can do and just how long it takes to, but also how short it takes, like it's.
• 19:34
  Emily Paulson: It's both like I'm like I can't believe this is actually happening, but then like I can't believe this is actually happening, but then like I can't believe this actually happened.
• 19:39
  Emily Paulson: But there's so many brilliant minds working here and they're all deeply passionate about the mission.
• 19:47
  Emily Paulson: I mean once, once you witness it and you're a part of it, like you're, you're stuck.
• 19:51
  Emily Paulson: It's just, it's so rewarding and challenging, but very moving.
• 20:00
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it sounds like it, and it's interesting because, as you talk, I'm obviously trying to connect the dots between some of the work that I do with living people of the more members of my family I can test, the more siblings, the more aunts and uncles, the more likely I am to be able to have this foundation for getting to answers more quickly when I get to that point of needing an answer.
• 20:27
  Crista Cowan: And there's some similarities in how genetic genealogy is done and how the work that you and the team there are doing.
• 20:35
  Crista Cowan: I love that.
• 20:36
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, I absolutely agree.
• 20:38
  Crista Cowan: So tell me a little bit where your episode, this episode, is going to air on D-Day and this year is the 80th anniversary of D-Day and tell me what you've learned just about D-Day and even just about World War II, working in this capacity.
• 20:58
  Emily Paulson: I think I have had a greater understanding and a greater respect for anybody who has served in war but World War II I mean in school and everything they teach you like, oh, here are the major battles and these are the number of casualties, but they don't really like tell you anything else.
• 21:27
  Emily Paulson: And so one very unique part of my job is I get to learn about every single person that has, you know, paid the ultimate price for our freedom, and I get to learn about their stories and their families and and their final moments, but also the 23 years prior to that that made their final moments so significant, and so I feel like that has just created a greater respect and and gratefulness for anybody who has served our country.
• 21:56
  Crista Cowan: So, as you've done this work, as you've learned more, particularly about World War II, particularly about D-Day and the invasion that literally changed the tide of the war and, ultimately, the course of history, is there any one story or one individual who has become more meaningful to you?
• 22:18
  Emily Paulson: His name is Second Lieutenant William Joseph McGowan and he was actually the second case I ever worked on when I joined working for DPAA.
• 22:30
  Emily Paulson: He was born July 26, 1920 in Minnesota.
• 22:34
  Emily Paulson: He was the son of Joseph C McGowan and Mary E Donnelly.
• 22:38
  Emily Paulson: He died on D-Day, june 6, 1944, just about a month before his 24th birthday.
• 22:45
  Emily Paulson: He was.
• 22:47
  Emily Paulson: I always remember him.
• 22:49
  Emily Paulson: I will never forget his photo.
• 22:51
  Emily Paulson: It's like engraved in my mind.
• 22:52
  Emily Paulson: It's him with his P-47, walking up and he's like turning back and someone just snapped a photo of him and it's in Louisiana during a training and it's just such an iconic photo and I love it and you're crying.
• 23:08
  Emily Paulson: I'm going to cry.
• 23:09
  Emily Paulson: It's, he's just, he'll always, he'll always come to mind and, um, I love that.
• 23:16
  Emily Paulson: I love that he is part of my story here and I get to tell a story because it's important.
• 23:23
  Emily Paulson: He has a family history of service.
• 23:25
  Emily Paulson: So his father and four of his brothers served in World War I and their mother.
• 23:33
  Emily Paulson: So McGowan's paternal grandmother her name is Sarah.
• 23:37
  Emily Paulson: She lost her husband very early and raised nine children by herself and I know it's amazing children by herself and I know it's it's amazing In 1910, you can see all six of her sons are employed as a newspaper.
• 23:53
  Emily Paulson: At a newspaper they're the editor, publisher and paper boy, and so I just I loved that Of the four of the five, of the six that went into the service, not a single one was in a journalism corps, and I think that is so fascinating.
• 24:06
  Emily Paulson: That was their bread and butter and they all survived World War I, specifically Joseph C McGowan, the father of our service member.
• 24:16
  Emily Paulson: He and his brother were both in the sanitary corps for World War I, which means that they were transporting injured soldiers from the battlefield to hospitals.
• 24:27
  Emily Paulson: And I, when I read that, I was struck with like wow, his dad had seen such a serious part of war and had seen such like a.
• 24:39
  Emily Paulson: I guess it would just be traumatizing to see that and then willingly send your only child, your only son, to the battlefield as well.
• 24:45
  Emily Paulson: I think it would just be traumatizing to see that and then willingly send your only son to the battlefield as well.
• 24:48
  Emily Paulson: I think that would have been extremely hard.
• 24:50
  Emily Paulson: During World War I, his grandmother, volunteered for the Red Cross and was also a huge community servant, and so I just loved seeing that sign on his paternal side community servant.
• 25:06
  Emily Paulson: And so I just loved seeing that sign on his paternal side but then equally on his maternal side.
• 25:10
  Emily Paulson: His mother's two brothers also served in World War I, and one brother, same as William Thomas Vincent Donnelly.
• 25:16
  Emily Paulson: He did not survive World War I.
• 25:18
  Emily Paulson: He was killed in action on October 5th 1918.
• 25:23
  Emily Paulson: And Mary Donnelly named her only son after him, and so our William Joseph McGowan, visiting doctor, his uncle, who was also killed in action in World War I and, I think, in France.
• 25:35
  Emily Paulson: And so I love that connection of this family of service.
• 25:40
  Emily Paulson: And not only that, they come back from World War I, and five of the six brothers go into journalism, and they're all journalists, like even the women in the family.
• 25:54
  Emily Paulson: And so it's no surprise that William Joseph McGowan became a journalist.
• 25:59
  Emily Paulson: He's working for his dad in the newspaper from the time he's a teenager until adulthood, and he attended the St Thomas Military Academy in St Paul, minnesota, and graduated in 1937.
• 26:12
  Emily Paulson: And then he went on to journalism school at the University of Minnesota, university of Colorado and the University of Missouri, and he finally graduated from the University of Missouri in journalism in September of 1942.
• 26:29
  Emily Paulson: A month before that, in August of 1942, he joined the Army Air Forces, and so he worked for the United Press and then worked for his father's newspaper before he was sent off to training in Texas in February of 1943.
• 26:46
  Emily Paulson: He became a second lieutenant and earned his pilot wings in December, and then he was sent to Harding Field at Baton Rouge, louisiana, where he went through fighter pilot training.
• 26:58
  Emily Paulson: And then, in February of 1944, he married Suzanne Schaefer, who also went by Suki, married uh, suzanne schaefer, who also went by suki, and literally two months later he was sent to england to begin flying missions for the war effort.
• 27:13
  Emily Paulson: On june 6 1944 he was part of a sweeping and strafing mission, um on supply lines, um to the german reinforcements, and as he it was him and two p47.
• 27:25
  Emily Paulson: Uh well, he was flying a p47 thunderbolt and he had another um pilot with him flying another one.
• 27:31
  Emily Paulson: They swooped down to bomb a train and as they came up, um german forces started shooting and so they shot down his plane.
• 27:39
  Emily Paulson: He was unable to recover from it and uh, the pilot was with him.
• 27:44
  Emily Paulson: Uh, his name is flight officer striker.
• 27:45
  Emily Paulson: He was a witness and said that his plane spiraled and exploded upon impact.
• 27:51
  Emily Paulson: I think I wouldn't get emotional, because this is what I do every day, but I do.
• 27:58
  Crista Cowan: But I'm sitting over here weeping as you're telling this story and you would think that a recitation of the facts of someone's life would not I can't, I can't even talk would not have that kind of an emotional impact.
• 28:14
  Crista Cowan: But you know what's coming right and you know, like you talk about him through his education and his career, but also that story about his family and about his father and the role he played in World War I, his mother losing a brother, the fact that they would I mean, I guess you can't allow an adult son to do or not do anything.
• 28:36
  Crista Cowan: He's going to do what he's going to do and probably because of that example that his family said, but how hard it must have been for his parents to let him go.
• 28:45
  Crista Cowan: And then when you mentioned that he'd only been married for two months before he was shipped off, that breaks your heart all over again because again, you know what's coming and yet in the moment they didn't, they didn't know what was coming.
• 28:59
  Crista Cowan: All they knew was that they were performing a service for their country.
• 29:04
  Crista Cowan: And it's just, it's very moving to to just even hear a recitation of facts of someone's life when you can look at it in the full context, with that hindsight and that perspective.
• 29:18
  Crista Cowan: So so thank you for sharing that.
• 29:20
  Crista Cowan: What else do we know about him Anything?
• 29:24
  Emily Paulson: Oh yeah.
• 29:25
  Crista Cowan: Can we all get it together?
• 29:26
  Crista Cowan: Yes, we can.
• 29:27
  Crista Cowan: We can do this.
• 29:32
  Emily Paulson: So I mean, that was what I could find just quickly, but I do want to talk about his recovery and how he got to my desk and so in 1947, after the war, the American Graves Registration Command comes in and tries to find him, and they had talked to witnesses around the area where his plane was supposed to be lost and they knew exactly what they were talking about and so they took the the command out and showed them the crash site and they tried to recover his remains.
• 30:13
  Crista Cowan: They were unable to find any remains and do we know how long after the war that was?
• 30:18
  Emily Paulson: uh that was 1947, so that would have been three years after his loss, okay, okay, yeah, the most incredible thing, and I am always so stunned by this every day, the French citizens in this little village where he crashed memorialized his crash site.
• 30:39
  Emily Paulson: There's a plaque and they, I mean, I just I think that's so stunning that it's not even their, their service member.
• 30:49
  Emily Paulson: It's not a french soldier, it's a us airman, who they tend to and make sure that the plaque is is well groomed, and I mean they, they knew whoever was and they treated that as his burial spot, and I think that's so lovely.
• 31:06
  Emily Paulson: And so in 1947, after the command could not find his remains, they declared him non-recoverable.
• 31:13
  Emily Paulson: Issue that to the family and say we're declaring him non-recoverable, we can't find him, and so that that was permanent until, I mean, really, the introduction of DNA and the idea that maybe we can go back and find these people.
• 31:36
  Emily Paulson: So in 2010, our agency went out and the DPA went out and did a site survey and they agreed that this site should probably be excavated to try to find remains.
• 31:49
  Emily Paulson: And then, in 2018, a team from the St Mary's University, which is in Nova Scotia, excavated the site as a partner to the DPAA and recovered osseous material that was then sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offa Air Force Base, which is where I am.
• 32:02
  Emily Paulson: That was then sent to the DPA laboratory at Offa Air Force Base, which is where I am, and so, from there, we did DNA testing and were able to conclude that it was the remains of second Lieutenant William Joseph McGowan and make an ID on May 13th of 2019.
• 32:18
  Crista Cowan: Okay, I have to ask the million dollar question.
• 32:20
  Crista Cowan: He was only married for two months.
• 32:21
  Crista Cowan: Did he have a child?
• 32:23
  Emily Paulson: He did not.
• 32:23
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, suki, she did get remarried, but yeah, they did not have any children together.
• 32:34
  Crista Cowan: And so nobody.
• 32:35
  Crista Cowan: I guess the reason I asked that question is because was anybody looking for him?
• 32:39
  Crista Cowan: Was anybody, you know?
• 32:40
  Crista Cowan: Did he have nieces and nephews?
• 32:42
  Crista Cowan: Was anybody still living to?
• 32:46
  Crista Cowan: I don't know?
• 32:47
  Crista Cowan: Like to understand the impact of what it meant to find him.
• 32:52
  Crista Cowan: Or is it just you and I sitting here weeping over him?
• 32:57
  Emily Paulson: This is a great question For McGowan specifically.
• 33:01
  Emily Paulson: Yes, he did have family looking for him and happy to take him and, you know, because of the pandemic, they were not able to immediately bury him, but they did bury him in July of 2022 at the Normandy American Cemetery in France, and I loved that.
• 33:19
  Emily Paulson: And there's a quote from his nephew in the news release about his burial and it said when we were asked where we wanted the final resting place of our uncle to be, we did not hesitate.
• 33:31
  Emily Paulson: So he's buried.
• 33:34
  Emily Paulson: I think it's lovely.
• 33:35
  Emily Paulson: He's buried about 350 miles away from his uncle, who also died and is buried in France, and he is in a cemetery with over 9000 service members who gave their lives for their country, and he's with his comrades.
• 33:50
  Emily Paulson: I think it's a beautiful sentiment.
• 33:53
  Emily Paulson: But yeah, I mean also this is something I also did not know when you go to these military cemeteries there's two in the Pacific and 14 in Europe they have walls or courts of the missing and anyone who is missing is engraved on these walls, and so McGowan's name was engraved on the walls of the missing at the Normandy American Cemetery but because he's been identified, there's been a bronze rosette placed next to his name to signify that his remains were identified and returned home.
• 34:30
  Emily Paulson: But, yeah, there's always family, there's always family out there looking, or they are notified and then they're looking but you would think like, oh, because there's no children, perhaps like no one cares, and I think that it's really interesting to see the generation, like the generational trauma of this event.
• 34:54
  Emily Paulson: I hear a lot from family members that say like this was so eventful for our grandmother and she spoke of him so often or she would never speak of it because it was too painful.
• 35:06
  Emily Paulson: But siblings are still alive and children and nieces and nephews and grandchildren and they all are seeking a closure and a final chapter for this, this family story, and I think it's lovely.
• 35:24
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, because, because really that's exactly what it is it's an unfinished story Until until the agency that you work for is able to to write that final chapter, to help them write that final chapter.
• 35:39
  Crista Cowan: I love that sentiment from the nephew about we didn't hesitate to bury him there.
• 35:45
  Crista Cowan: I think that sentiment actually rings for the whole experience.
• 35:49
  Crista Cowan: So many of these men and women did not hesitate to walk into service, to walk into the line of fire, to lay down their lives for the freedoms that we enjoy and sometimes take for granted.
• 36:02
  Crista Cowan: So, as we commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the day this episode airs, I just would like to hear from you, with the work that you're engaged in and the perspective that you have now, what do you hope for the future, for the?
• 36:20
  Emily Paulson: work that you do.
• 36:21
  Emily Paulson: I have a few and I hope you don't mind.
• 36:23
  Emily Paulson: I think the first thing I would say is, if anyone listening has been or in the future will be contacted by a service casualty office or is a family member of a missing service member and you're interested in donating your DNA to help facilitate an identification, we would love that and it would facilitate answers for their family, but also other families, and it's a huge part in what we do and we're always grateful for any assistance from our families.
• 36:56
  Emily Paulson: And then the second point I would want to make is, if there are any family members listening, I just want to say that we'll never stop, we'll always try, we'll always keep searching and honor the story of your family member and their sacrifice.
• 37:18
  Emily Paulson: And then, third is, I hope because of these stories Okay, I got to pause One second.
• 37:33
  Crista Cowan: The tears are flowing freely, right.
• 37:34
  Crista Cowan: I think that's okay, though, because I think the significance of the work that you're doing is it warrants the emotion.
• 37:43
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, for sure.
• 37:45
  Emily Paulson: And I will say like, say, like everyone, we all cry at work.
• 37:48
  Emily Paulson: We, we all cry um, it's an emotional mission and an important mission, but we, we feel the pain and uh want to help.
• 38:01
  Emily Paulson: But third, I would hope that as we tell these stories and remember all of our service members who have given their lives or even just served in war, I hope that we can take those stories and realize that maybe we should always strive for peace as our first solution, and I don't know whether that's personal, professional, in your home and your community, or even on a global scale.
• 38:34
  Emily Paulson: I hope we can always, always push for peace as an as a way to honor, you know, the sacrifices that these people have made it's not for nothing and that peace be our goal in life.
• 38:47
  Emily Paulson: I think that's always just going to be something I see every day is just, you know, the price of war is very heavy and if we can avoid that, I think that would be my hope for the future.
• 39:01
  Crista Cowan: So beautifully said.
• 39:01
  Crista Cowan: Thank you.
• 39:04
  Crista Cowan: Thank you for taking the time to think about your answer to that question and for sharing it in such a thoughtful way.
• 39:10
  Crista Cowan: Thank you for sharing the story that you shared.
• 39:13
  Crista Cowan: I know that that is just a single representation of thousands of stories that have both you know, the final chapter has been written, but also the unfinished stories that are still out there, and so thank you for the work that you and the whole team I know it is a massive effort, not just within the organization but with you know, contractors and partners and universities, and just the scope of the amount of work that is being done to return the identity of one soldier, to return the identity of one family, to finish writing that story is worth the effort, I think.
• 39:55
  Emily Paulson: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 39:56
  Emily Paulson: I would agree with you, thank you.
• 39:59
  Crista Cowan: I love talking to you.
• 39:59
  Crista Cowan: I do, too.
• 40:00
  Crista Cowan: I love talking with you, but I also love that you are where you are doing the work that you are doing, because I think it matters.
• 40:09
  Emily Paulson: Yeah, it matters.