Severn students research World War II veterans buried in Owings Mills

MARYLAND (WBFF) — A group of Severn Run High School students is using their lunch period to research the lives of three World War II veterans buried at Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery in Owings Mills.

It’s all part of a program called Silent Heroes: Untold Stories of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard in World War II, organized by National History Day, a College Park-based nonprofit that works with more than half a million students each year on original history research.

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Ben Guidot, a social studies teacher at Severn Run High, was one of 56 teachers nationwide, and one of three in Maryland, selected to work with students interested in the program.

The students will be researching and documenting the lives of three World War II veterans: U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Radioman Armin Francis Mohr, Coast Guard Seaman Apprentice Barbara Winifred Newkirk Metzger and Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Jack Thomas Parke.

Guidot said he chose people whose lives could help students connect with different experiences.

Parke served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and the U.S. Navy before becoming an FBI special agent. Metzger is the only woman Guidot found buried at Garrison Forest who met the project’s criteria. He chose Mohr in part because his wife, Lucille, is listed in the Jewish registry of family members who survived the Holocaust.

Guidot said he wants the project to engage students and give them a chance to honor people who served their communities.

“I want to make this something that is engaging for the students that they can actually be successful in,” Guidot said.

He hopes the project will also let students “give back to those who actually have given and paused their life in a way to help the community around us.”

For students, researching a veteran’s life can create a personal connection, even if they had never heard of them before.

“It’s really cool because you kind of get, like, it’s almost like you’re close to the family in a way,” Addison Wilhelm, a freshman, said. “And from not knowing anything to knowing almost everything about their life, it’s going to be a cool process to see that.”

Another student said the project is about recognizing veterans whose stories otherwise might not have been told.

There are so many other people that aren’t being researched that also have that story,” freshman Layla Roundtree said. “And just getting to learn about that person just brings extra recognition to them, like what they deserve for helping our country.”

The students will publish profiles about the veterans on the Veterans Legacy Memorial and National History Day’s Silent Heroes website. In spring 2027, they are expected to return to Garrison Forest to deliver eulogies honoring the veterans.

National History Day said all 56 teachers and more than 800 students nationwide will research more than 120 veterans as part of the program. The Veterans Legacy Program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs supports the event with a grant.