Memorial marker and he is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.
~
Bloomington World-Telephone 06/07/1945
Mrs. Elsie Rogers of Rural Route Two received a telegram from the War Department Tuesday informing her that her husband, Corporal Julian Harold Rogers, 21, was killed in action in Germany on November 4. He was previously reported as missing on that date.
Corporal Rogers entered the Army approximately two and a half years ago and was sent overseas in April 1944. He was a member of an infantry division of the 1st Army. A graduate of Bloomington High School, he worked with his father-in-law, R. H. Marlin, a contractor, before entering the service.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Elsie Rogers, and two year old daughter, Connie, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Julian Rogers, a brother, Philip, and a sister, Phyllis, all of Rural Route Two.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 11/11/2008
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1944, 85-year-old Elsie Evans recalled, when she got the news her husband was missing in action somewhere in Germany.
Her father had just offered a blessing for the family's holiday dinner when someone knocked on the door. She got up and answered it, she said, only to discover a man in front of a waiting taxicab with a telegram carrying the awful news.
She wrote letters to the Army in an effort to find out more. But that information never came - just a few months later, her husband was declared killed in action but his body was never found.
Now more than 60 years later, Unionville resident Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers isn't lost anymore.
Connie Conard was about 2 years old when her father went missing. She doesn't remember him, just by the stories people have told her and through a few photographs and mementos.
So she was surprised when she got a call last summer from a genealogist working with the military who said she'd been working to find relatives of Pfc. Rogers. Oddly enough, she said, the call came the same day she learned her grandson would be allowed the honor of placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C.
A few weeks later, the military called seeking a DNA sample. Rogers' last living sibling, sister Phyllis, and her daughter quickly shipped off samples of their DNA. Then, the family waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, a little over a month ago, they received a call from the U.S. Army, Conard said. The body found in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest, was indeed that of her long missing father.
Military investigators told her a German archaeologist was operating a metal detector in the area when he found a tooth, Conard said. He promptly called authorities, who discovered the remains of both Rogers and another soldier, Henry Edward Marquez from Kansas, in the area.
Rogers' remains were relatively well-preserved, according to a packet of information provided to Conard and her family by the military. His skull was found inside his helmet, his boots were on his feet and his dog tag was still with his body, thought it's not clear exactly what killed him.
Flipping through the bound packet provided her by the military, Conard pointed out the items found in the area - her father's canteen, gas mask, well-worn brown boots with the word "Goodyear" still visible on the sole, the tag from his sleeping bag, coins, a fork, water purification tablets and even ammunition for an M1 rifle and an old grenade.
It's amazing, but horrible," she said. "It's the only way I'll ever see my dad."
She always used to think he'd somehow just come walking through the door, she admitted.
"I thought he'd come back," Conard said, choking up. "I really did."
A hand-tinted painting of Rogers made sometime before his death shows a young, good-looking man wearing a neatly pressed uniform, his infantry insignia on his collar, brown tie carefully knotted, cap set at a jaunty angle.
Elsie Evans, who remarried after Rogers' death, said she met Rogers - who went by Harold, because his father had the same first name - because they attended Bloomington High School together, rode the same bus and went to the same Baptist church in New Unionville. She recalled him as a man with a good sense of humor, who was easy-going and liked to joke a lot.
"He turned 18 in September, and I turned 18 in October, and we got married in November." Evans said, "That was 1941."
Conard was born in December 1942, and Rogers was drafted in February 1943. He stayed stateside for some time, and then went overseas in March 1944.
The last letter she'd had said his unit was moving into the Huertgen Forest, Evans said.
"Through the years, I'd just made up my mind that it wasn't for me to know what happened," she said. "I just thought the Lord didn't want me to know what happened."
Rogers' sister, 78-year-old Phyllis Weddle, said she was just 13 when her brother was reported missing.
She used to tag along with him and her other brother, pestering them, she said., adding with a giggle, "They used to tell me that if I wouldn't climb a tree, they'd shoot me with the BB gun. And I'd climb that tree. But they always protected me from anything."
Finding her brother's body offers some closure for the family, she said, adding, "I just wish my mother was here so she'd know. She really suffered over this."
Both Evans and Weddle and a host of other family members will travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring. Rogers' body will be buried there in Arlington National Cemetery, a full military funeral paid for by the U.S. government, Conard said.
"My opinion is he deserves something," she said. "We can bring him here and bury him, but one of these years, we'll all be gone and nobody will know how he is. He'll always be honored if he's at Arlington. And that's the best I can do for him."
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/16/2009
Family members of Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, a Unionville soldier who'd been missing in action for more than 60 years, were in our nation's capital three weeks ago to watch as he was finally buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There were tears.
"I said all along I wanted him to be buried with honors," daughter Connie Conard said. "It could not have been any better than it turned out to be. ... He'll always be honored now."
Now, Roger's family will host a special local service for those who couldn't travel to see his funeral.
The memorial ceremony to honor the World War II soldier will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monroe County Fairgrounds auditorium.
The event will include the American Legion Color Guard and Bloomington Brass Band. Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard will speak.
It was Thanksgiving Day back in 1944 when Rogers' family received news he was missing in action somewhere in Germany. His body was not found.
Bur last year, the U.S. Army told family members Rogers' remains had been discovered in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest.
Conard, who was only 2 when her father went missing, said that finally attending a funeral made his existence somehow more real to her.
"When we were out there, and there was the casket ... all of a sudden, that was my dad," she said, her voice catching.
Her oldest son, Frank Conard, prepared a photographic slide show of Rogers' funeral at Arlington, which Conard said will be played at Sunday's memorial service.
She said it makes use of the beautiful images of the national cemetery, including the red brick chapel with white columns, azalea bushes heavy with blooms, soldiers in crisp dress uniforms and the red, white and blue of the American flag.
And Conard is certain someone is watching over her father. At his funeral, one of the family's military escorts said he'd been approached by a retired Army soldier. The man inquired about the services and the name of the soldier being honored.
After learning Rogers' name, the man shared that he was one of the people who'd helped recover Rogers' remains from Germany. That floored family members, who promptly invited the man to attend the services.
And he did, watching the body of the man he'd help bring home finally be laid to rest.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/18/2009
Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, an Army soldier from Monroe County, was killed more than 60 years ago in a German forest, but his remains were found only last summer, leading to an official burial in Arlington National Cemetery earlier this month and a local memorial service Sunday afternoon.
The handsome your Hoosier left his home of Unionville to fight in World War II and never came back, leaving his family only with news he was missing in action.
About a year ago, a farmer found a tooth in a German cornfield, unearthing a war story that spans decades and connects family members and former lovers.
Sunday afternoon, in a pre-Memorial Day ceremony, about 300 people - including several World War II veterans - gathered in front of a folded American flag, a bouquet of flowers and a portrait of a young Rogers in his Army dress uniform.
June Presnell, whose now-85-year-old sister Elsie Evans had been married to Rogers when he was killed, wrote a commemorative piece that was passed out to those in attendance Sunday. She told of how she watched her sister receive the news that Rogers was missing in action on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. For 64 years, Presnell wrote, her sister wondered about the whereabouts of her former husband.
"God is so good to allow her and her daughter to know the place where his body now rests until Jesus comes again. God is good!!" she wrote.
Presnell and other members of the family were in attendance at Arlington a few weeks ago when Rogers' body was buried among more that 320,000 similar graves.
Delivering the eulogy Sunday afternoon was Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard. He described Rogers as "a citizen soldier, if you will" drafted into a war that produced "the greatest economy our nation has known." Rogers, he said, led the way for many of today's young men and women to offer themselves in our current war, which, Rogers said, is now the second-longest conflict the United States has engaged.
"It's not the reporters who protects the freedom of speech; it's not the campus organizer; it's the soldier," said Umbarger, who finished his eulogy with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
~
Bloomington World-Telephone 06/07/1945
Mrs. Elsie Rogers of Rural Route Two received a telegram from the War Department Tuesday informing her that her husband, Corporal Julian Harold Rogers, 21, was killed in action in Germany on November 4. He was previously reported as missing on that date.
Corporal Rogers entered the Army approximately two and a half years ago and was sent overseas in April 1944. He was a member of an infantry division of the 1st Army. A graduate of Bloomington High School, he worked with his father-in-law, R. H. Marlin, a contractor, before entering the service.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Elsie Rogers, and two year old daughter, Connie, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Julian Rogers, a brother, Philip, and a sister, Phyllis, all of Rural Route Two.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 11/11/2008
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1944, 85-year-old Elsie Evans recalled, when she got the news her husband was missing in action somewhere in Germany.
Her father had just offered a blessing for the family's holiday dinner when someone knocked on the door. She got up and answered it, she said, only to discover a man in front of a waiting taxicab with a telegram carrying the awful news.
She wrote letters to the Army in an effort to find out more. But that information never came - just a few months later, her husband was declared killed in action but his body was never found.
Now more than 60 years later, Unionville resident Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers isn't lost anymore.
Connie Conard was about 2 years old when her father went missing. She doesn't remember him, just by the stories people have told her and through a few photographs and mementos.
So she was surprised when she got a call last summer from a genealogist working with the military who said she'd been working to find relatives of Pfc. Rogers. Oddly enough, she said, the call came the same day she learned her grandson would be allowed the honor of placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C.
A few weeks later, the military called seeking a DNA sample. Rogers' last living sibling, sister Phyllis, and her daughter quickly shipped off samples of their DNA. Then, the family waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, a little over a month ago, they received a call from the U.S. Army, Conard said. The body found in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest, was indeed that of her long missing father.
Military investigators told her a German archaeologist was operating a metal detector in the area when he found a tooth, Conard said. He promptly called authorities, who discovered the remains of both Rogers and another soldier, Henry Edward Marquez from Kansas, in the area.
Rogers' remains were relatively well-preserved, according to a packet of information provided to Conard and her family by the military. His skull was found inside his helmet, his boots were on his feet and his dog tag was still with his body, thought it's not clear exactly what killed him.
Flipping through the bound packet provided her by the military, Conard pointed out the items found in the area - her father's canteen, gas mask, well-worn brown boots with the word "Goodyear" still visible on the sole, the tag from his sleeping bag, coins, a fork, water purification tablets and even ammunition for an M1 rifle and an old grenade.
It's amazing, but horrible," she said. "It's the only way I'll ever see my dad."
She always used to think he'd somehow just come walking through the door, she admitted.
"I thought he'd come back," Conard said, choking up. "I really did."
A hand-tinted painting of Rogers made sometime before his death shows a young, good-looking man wearing a neatly pressed uniform, his infantry insignia on his collar, brown tie carefully knotted, cap set at a jaunty angle.
Elsie Evans, who remarried after Rogers' death, said she met Rogers - who went by Harold, because his father had the same first name - because they attended Bloomington High School together, rode the same bus and went to the same Baptist church in New Unionville. She recalled him as a man with a good sense of humor, who was easy-going and liked to joke a lot.
"He turned 18 in September, and I turned 18 in October, and we got married in November." Evans said, "That was 1941."
Conard was born in December 1942, and Rogers was drafted in February 1943. He stayed stateside for some time, and then went overseas in March 1944.
The last letter she'd had said his unit was moving into the Huertgen Forest, Evans said.
"Through the years, I'd just made up my mind that it wasn't for me to know what happened," she said. "I just thought the Lord didn't want me to know what happened."
Rogers' sister, 78-year-old Phyllis Weddle, said she was just 13 when her brother was reported missing.
She used to tag along with him and her other brother, pestering them, she said., adding with a giggle, "They used to tell me that if I wouldn't climb a tree, they'd shoot me with the BB gun. And I'd climb that tree. But they always protected me from anything."
Finding her brother's body offers some closure for the family, she said, adding, "I just wish my mother was here so she'd know. She really suffered over this."
Both Evans and Weddle and a host of other family members will travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring. Rogers' body will be buried there in Arlington National Cemetery, a full military funeral paid for by the U.S. government, Conard said.
"My opinion is he deserves something," she said. "We can bring him here and bury him, but one of these years, we'll all be gone and nobody will know how he is. He'll always be honored if he's at Arlington. And that's the best I can do for him."
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/16/2009
Family members of Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, a Unionville soldier who'd been missing in action for more than 60 years, were in our nation's capital three weeks ago to watch as he was finally buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There were tears.
"I said all along I wanted him to be buried with honors," daughter Connie Conard said. "It could not have been any better than it turned out to be. ... He'll always be honored now."
Now, Roger's family will host a special local service for those who couldn't travel to see his funeral.
The memorial ceremony to honor the World War II soldier will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monroe County Fairgrounds auditorium.
The event will include the American Legion Color Guard and Bloomington Brass Band. Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard will speak.
It was Thanksgiving Day back in 1944 when Rogers' family received news he was missing in action somewhere in Germany. His body was not found.
Bur last year, the U.S. Army told family members Rogers' remains had been discovered in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest.
Conard, who was only 2 when her father went missing, said that finally attending a funeral made his existence somehow more real to her.
"When we were out there, and there was the casket ... all of a sudden, that was my dad," she said, her voice catching.
Her oldest son, Frank Conard, prepared a photographic slide show of Rogers' funeral at Arlington, which Conard said will be played at Sunday's memorial service.
She said it makes use of the beautiful images of the national cemetery, including the red brick chapel with white columns, azalea bushes heavy with blooms, soldiers in crisp dress uniforms and the red, white and blue of the American flag.
And Conard is certain someone is watching over her father. At his funeral, one of the family's military escorts said he'd been approached by a retired Army soldier. The man inquired about the services and the name of the soldier being honored.
After learning Rogers' name, the man shared that he was one of the people who'd helped recover Rogers' remains from Germany. That floored family members, who promptly invited the man to attend the services.
And he did, watching the body of the man he'd help bring home finally be laid to rest.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/18/2009
Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, an Army soldier from Monroe County, was killed more than 60 years ago in a German forest, but his remains were found only last summer, leading to an official burial in Arlington National Cemetery earlier this month and a local memorial service Sunday afternoon.
The handsome your Hoosier left his home of Unionville to fight in World War II and never came back, leaving his family only with news he was missing in action.
About a year ago, a farmer found a tooth in a German cornfield, unearthing a war story that spans decades and connects family members and former lovers.
Sunday afternoon, in a pre-Memorial Day ceremony, about 300 people - including several World War II veterans - gathered in front of a folded American flag, a bouquet of flowers and a portrait of a young Rogers in his Army dress uniform.
June Presnell, whose now-85-year-old sister Elsie Evans had been married to Rogers when he was killed, wrote a commemorative piece that was passed out to those in attendance Sunday. She told of how she watched her sister receive the news that Rogers was missing in action on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. For 64 years, Presnell wrote, her sister wondered about the whereabouts of her former husband.
"God is so good to allow her and her daughter to know the place where his body now rests until Jesus comes again. God is good!!" she wrote.
Presnell and other members of the family were in attendance at Arlington a few weeks ago when Rogers' body was buried among more that 320,000 similar graves.
Delivering the eulogy Sunday afternoon was Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard. He described Rogers as "a citizen soldier, if you will" drafted into a war that produced "the greatest economy our nation has known." Rogers, he said, led the way for many of today's young men and women to offer themselves in our current war, which, Rogers said, is now the second-longest conflict the United States has engaged.
"It's not the reporters who protects the freedom of speech; it's not the campus organizer; it's the soldier," said Umbarger, who finished his eulogy with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
Memorial marker and he is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.
~
Bloomington World-Telephone 06/07/1945
Mrs. Elsie Rogers of Rural Route Two received a telegram from the War Department Tuesday informing her that her husband, Corporal Julian Harold Rogers, 21, was killed in action in Germany on November 4. He was previously reported as missing on that date.
Corporal Rogers entered the Army approximately two and a half years ago and was sent overseas in April 1944. He was a member of an infantry division of the 1st Army. A graduate of Bloomington High School, he worked with his father-in-law, R. H. Marlin, a contractor, before entering the service.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Elsie Rogers, and two year old daughter, Connie, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Julian Rogers, a brother, Philip, and a sister, Phyllis, all of Rural Route Two.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 11/11/2008
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1944, 85-year-old Elsie Evans recalled, when she got the news her husband was missing in action somewhere in Germany.
Her father had just offered a blessing for the family's holiday dinner when someone knocked on the door. She got up and answered it, she said, only to discover a man in front of a waiting taxicab with a telegram carrying the awful news.
She wrote letters to the Army in an effort to find out more. But that information never came - just a few months later, her husband was declared killed in action but his body was never found.
Now more than 60 years later, Unionville resident Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers isn't lost anymore.
Connie Conard was about 2 years old when her father went missing. She doesn't remember him, just by the stories people have told her and through a few photographs and mementos.
So she was surprised when she got a call last summer from a genealogist working with the military who said she'd been working to find relatives of Pfc. Rogers. Oddly enough, she said, the call came the same day she learned her grandson would be allowed the honor of placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C.
A few weeks later, the military called seeking a DNA sample. Rogers' last living sibling, sister Phyllis, and her daughter quickly shipped off samples of their DNA. Then, the family waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, a little over a month ago, they received a call from the U.S. Army, Conard said. The body found in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest, was indeed that of her long missing father.
Military investigators told her a German archaeologist was operating a metal detector in the area when he found a tooth, Conard said. He promptly called authorities, who discovered the remains of both Rogers and another soldier, Henry Edward Marquez from Kansas, in the area.
Rogers' remains were relatively well-preserved, according to a packet of information provided to Conard and her family by the military. His skull was found inside his helmet, his boots were on his feet and his dog tag was still with his body, thought it's not clear exactly what killed him.
Flipping through the bound packet provided her by the military, Conard pointed out the items found in the area - her father's canteen, gas mask, well-worn brown boots with the word "Goodyear" still visible on the sole, the tag from his sleeping bag, coins, a fork, water purification tablets and even ammunition for an M1 rifle and an old grenade.
It's amazing, but horrible," she said. "It's the only way I'll ever see my dad."
She always used to think he'd somehow just come walking through the door, she admitted.
"I thought he'd come back," Conard said, choking up. "I really did."
A hand-tinted painting of Rogers made sometime before his death shows a young, good-looking man wearing a neatly pressed uniform, his infantry insignia on his collar, brown tie carefully knotted, cap set at a jaunty angle.
Elsie Evans, who remarried after Rogers' death, said she met Rogers - who went by Harold, because his father had the same first name - because they attended Bloomington High School together, rode the same bus and went to the same Baptist church in New Unionville. She recalled him as a man with a good sense of humor, who was easy-going and liked to joke a lot.
"He turned 18 in September, and I turned 18 in October, and we got married in November." Evans said, "That was 1941."
Conard was born in December 1942, and Rogers was drafted in February 1943. He stayed stateside for some time, and then went overseas in March 1944.
The last letter she'd had said his unit was moving into the Huertgen Forest, Evans said.
"Through the years, I'd just made up my mind that it wasn't for me to know what happened," she said. "I just thought the Lord didn't want me to know what happened."
Rogers' sister, 78-year-old Phyllis Weddle, said she was just 13 when her brother was reported missing.
She used to tag along with him and her other brother, pestering them, she said., adding with a giggle, "They used to tell me that if I wouldn't climb a tree, they'd shoot me with the BB gun. And I'd climb that tree. But they always protected me from anything."
Finding her brother's body offers some closure for the family, she said, adding, "I just wish my mother was here so she'd know. She really suffered over this."
Both Evans and Weddle and a host of other family members will travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring. Rogers' body will be buried there in Arlington National Cemetery, a full military funeral paid for by the U.S. government, Conard said.
"My opinion is he deserves something," she said. "We can bring him here and bury him, but one of these years, we'll all be gone and nobody will know how he is. He'll always be honored if he's at Arlington. And that's the best I can do for him."
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/16/2009
Family members of Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, a Unionville soldier who'd been missing in action for more than 60 years, were in our nation's capital three weeks ago to watch as he was finally buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There were tears.
"I said all along I wanted him to be buried with honors," daughter Connie Conard said. "It could not have been any better than it turned out to be. ... He'll always be honored now."
Now, Roger's family will host a special local service for those who couldn't travel to see his funeral.
The memorial ceremony to honor the World War II soldier will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monroe County Fairgrounds auditorium.
The event will include the American Legion Color Guard and Bloomington Brass Band. Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard will speak.
It was Thanksgiving Day back in 1944 when Rogers' family received news he was missing in action somewhere in Germany. His body was not found.
Bur last year, the U.S. Army told family members Rogers' remains had been discovered in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest.
Conard, who was only 2 when her father went missing, said that finally attending a funeral made his existence somehow more real to her.
"When we were out there, and there was the casket ... all of a sudden, that was my dad," she said, her voice catching.
Her oldest son, Frank Conard, prepared a photographic slide show of Rogers' funeral at Arlington, which Conard said will be played at Sunday's memorial service.
She said it makes use of the beautiful images of the national cemetery, including the red brick chapel with white columns, azalea bushes heavy with blooms, soldiers in crisp dress uniforms and the red, white and blue of the American flag.
And Conard is certain someone is watching over her father. At his funeral, one of the family's military escorts said he'd been approached by a retired Army soldier. The man inquired about the services and the name of the soldier being honored.
After learning Rogers' name, the man shared that he was one of the people who'd helped recover Rogers' remains from Germany. That floored family members, who promptly invited the man to attend the services.
And he did, watching the body of the man he'd help bring home finally be laid to rest.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 05/18/2009
Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, an Army soldier from Monroe County, was killed more than 60 years ago in a German forest, but his remains were found only last summer, leading to an official burial in Arlington National Cemetery earlier this month and a local memorial service Sunday afternoon.
The handsome your Hoosier left his home of Unionville to fight in World War II and never came back, leaving his family only with news he was missing in action.
About a year ago, a farmer found a tooth in a German cornfield, unearthing a war story that spans decades and connects family members and former lovers.
Sunday afternoon, in a pre-Memorial Day ceremony, about 300 people - including several World War II veterans - gathered in front of a folded American flag, a bouquet of flowers and a portrait of a young Rogers in his Army dress uniform.
June Presnell, whose now-85-year-old sister Elsie Evans had been married to Rogers when he was killed, wrote a commemorative piece that was passed out to those in attendance Sunday. She told of how she watched her sister receive the news that Rogers was missing in action on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. For 64 years, Presnell wrote, her sister wondered about the whereabouts of her former husband.
"God is so good to allow her and her daughter to know the place where his body now rests until Jesus comes again. God is good!!" she wrote.
Presnell and other members of the family were in attendance at Arlington a few weeks ago when Rogers' body was buried among more that 320,000 similar graves.
Delivering the eulogy Sunday afternoon was Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard. He described Rogers as "a citizen soldier, if you will" drafted into a war that produced "the greatest economy our nation has known." Rogers, he said, led the way for many of today's young men and women to offer themselves in our current war, which, Rogers said, is now the second-longest conflict the United States has engaged.
"It's not the reporters who protects the freedom of speech; it's not the campus organizer; it's the soldier," said Umbarger, who finished his eulogy with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
~
Bloomington World-Telephone 06/07/1945
Mrs. Elsie Rogers of Rural Route Two received a telegram from the War Department Tuesday informing her that her husband, Corporal Julian Harold Rogers, 21, was killed in action in Germany on November 4. He was previously reported as missing on that date.
Corporal Rogers entered the Army approximately two and a half years ago and was sent overseas in April 1944. He was a member of an infantry division of the 1st Army. A graduate of Bloomington High School, he worked with his father-in-law, R. H. Marlin, a contractor, before entering the service.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Elsie Rogers, and two year old daughter, Connie, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Julian Rogers, a brother, Philip, and a sister, Phyllis, all of Rural Route Two.
~
Bloomington Herald-Times 11/11/2008
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1944, 85-year-old Elsie Evans recalled, when she got the news her husband was missing in action somewhere in Germany.
Her father had just offered a blessing for the family's holiday dinner when someone knocked on the door. She got up and answered it, she said, only to discover a man in front of a waiting taxicab with a telegram carrying the awful news.
She wrote letters to the Army in an effort to find out more. But that information never came - just a few months later, her husband was declared killed in action but his body was never found.
Now more than 60 years later, Unionville resident Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers isn't lost anymore.
Connie Conard was about 2 years old when her father went missing. She doesn't remember him, just by the stories people have told her and through a few photographs and mementos.
So she was surprised when she got a call last summer from a genealogist working with the military who said she'd been working to find relatives of Pfc. Rogers. Oddly enough, she said, the call came the same day she learned her grandson would be allowed the honor of placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C.
A few weeks later, the military called seeking a DNA sample. Rogers' last living sibling, sister Phyllis, and her daughter quickly shipped off samples of their DNA. Then, the family waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, a little over a month ago, they received a call from the U.S. Army, Conard said. The body found in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest, was indeed that of her long missing father.
Military investigators told her a German archaeologist was operating a metal detector in the area when he found a tooth, Conard said. He promptly called authorities, who discovered the remains of both Rogers and another soldier, Henry Edward Marquez from Kansas, in the area.
Rogers' remains were relatively well-preserved, according to a packet of information provided to Conard and her family by the military. His skull was found inside his helmet, his boots were on his feet and his dog tag was still with his body, thought it's not clear exactly what killed him.
Flipping through the bound packet provided her by the military, Conard pointed out the items found in the area - her father's canteen, gas mask, well-worn brown boots with the word "Goodyear" still visible on the sole, the tag from his sleeping bag, coins, a fork, water purification tablets and even ammunition for an M1 rifle and an old grenade.
It's amazing, but horrible," she said. "It's the only way I'll ever see my dad."
She always used to think he'd somehow just come walking through the door, she admitted.
"I thought he'd come back," Conard said, choking up. "I really did."
A hand-tinted painting of Rogers made sometime before his death shows a young, good-looking man wearing a neatly pressed uniform, his infantry insignia on his collar, brown tie carefully knotted, cap set at a jaunty angle.
Elsie Evans, who remarried after Rogers' death, said she met Rogers - who went by Harold, because his father had the same first name - because they attended Bloomington High School together, rode the same bus and went to the same Baptist church in New Unionville. She recalled him as a man with a good sense of humor, who was easy-going and liked to joke a lot.
"He turned 18 in September, and I turned 18 in October, and we got married in November." Evans said, "That was 1941."
Conard was born in December 1942, and Rogers was drafted in February 1943. He stayed stateside for some time, and then went overseas in March 1944.
The last letter she'd had said his unit was moving into the Huertgen Forest, Evans said.
"Through the years, I'd just made up my mind that it wasn't for me to know what happened," she said. "I just thought the Lord didn't want me to know what happened."
Rogers' sister, 78-year-old Phyllis Weddle, said she was just 13 when her brother was reported missing.
She used to tag along with him and her other brother, pestering them, she said., adding with a giggle, "They used to tell me that if I wouldn't climb a tree, they'd shoot me with the BB gun. And I'd climb that tree. But they always protected me from anything."
Finding her brother's body offers some closure for the family, she said, adding, "I just wish my mother was here so she'd know. She really suffered over this."
Both Evans and Weddle and a host of other family members will travel to Washington, D.C., in the spring. Rogers' body will be buried there in Arlington National Cemetery, a full military funeral paid for by the U.S. government, Conard said.
"My opinion is he deserves something," she said. "We can bring him here and bury him, but one of these years, we'll all be gone and nobody will know how he is. He'll always be honored if he's at Arlington. And that's the best I can do for him."
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Bloomington Herald-Times 05/16/2009
Family members of Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, a Unionville soldier who'd been missing in action for more than 60 years, were in our nation's capital three weeks ago to watch as he was finally buried at Arlington National Cemetery. There were tears.
"I said all along I wanted him to be buried with honors," daughter Connie Conard said. "It could not have been any better than it turned out to be. ... He'll always be honored now."
Now, Roger's family will host a special local service for those who couldn't travel to see his funeral.
The memorial ceremony to honor the World War II soldier will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monroe County Fairgrounds auditorium.
The event will include the American Legion Color Guard and Bloomington Brass Band. Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard will speak.
It was Thanksgiving Day back in 1944 when Rogers' family received news he was missing in action somewhere in Germany. His body was not found.
Bur last year, the U.S. Army told family members Rogers' remains had been discovered in what's now a cornfield in Germany, a few kilometers southwest of Brandenburg near the Huertgen Forest.
Conard, who was only 2 when her father went missing, said that finally attending a funeral made his existence somehow more real to her.
"When we were out there, and there was the casket ... all of a sudden, that was my dad," she said, her voice catching.
Her oldest son, Frank Conard, prepared a photographic slide show of Rogers' funeral at Arlington, which Conard said will be played at Sunday's memorial service.
She said it makes use of the beautiful images of the national cemetery, including the red brick chapel with white columns, azalea bushes heavy with blooms, soldiers in crisp dress uniforms and the red, white and blue of the American flag.
And Conard is certain someone is watching over her father. At his funeral, one of the family's military escorts said he'd been approached by a retired Army soldier. The man inquired about the services and the name of the soldier being honored.
After learning Rogers' name, the man shared that he was one of the people who'd helped recover Rogers' remains from Germany. That floored family members, who promptly invited the man to attend the services.
And he did, watching the body of the man he'd help bring home finally be laid to rest.
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Bloomington Herald-Times 05/18/2009
Pfc. Julian Harold Rogers, an Army soldier from Monroe County, was killed more than 60 years ago in a German forest, but his remains were found only last summer, leading to an official burial in Arlington National Cemetery earlier this month and a local memorial service Sunday afternoon.
The handsome your Hoosier left his home of Unionville to fight in World War II and never came back, leaving his family only with news he was missing in action.
About a year ago, a farmer found a tooth in a German cornfield, unearthing a war story that spans decades and connects family members and former lovers.
Sunday afternoon, in a pre-Memorial Day ceremony, about 300 people - including several World War II veterans - gathered in front of a folded American flag, a bouquet of flowers and a portrait of a young Rogers in his Army dress uniform.
June Presnell, whose now-85-year-old sister Elsie Evans had been married to Rogers when he was killed, wrote a commemorative piece that was passed out to those in attendance Sunday. She told of how she watched her sister receive the news that Rogers was missing in action on Thanksgiving Day in 1944. For 64 years, Presnell wrote, her sister wondered about the whereabouts of her former husband.
"God is so good to allow her and her daughter to know the place where his body now rests until Jesus comes again. God is good!!" she wrote.
Presnell and other members of the family were in attendance at Arlington a few weeks ago when Rogers' body was buried among more that 320,000 similar graves.
Delivering the eulogy Sunday afternoon was Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger of the Indiana National Guard. He described Rogers as "a citizen soldier, if you will" drafted into a war that produced "the greatest economy our nation has known." Rogers, he said, led the way for many of today's young men and women to offer themselves in our current war, which, Rogers said, is now the second-longest conflict the United States has engaged.
"It's not the reporters who protects the freedom of speech; it's not the campus organizer; it's the soldier," said Umbarger, who finished his eulogy with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
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