Photo By Patrick Griffith | Meaghan M. Kacmarcik, 316th Wing deputy historian, gets her service dog, Charlie,...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. -- When Meaghan M. Kacmarcik was 10 years old, she was stricken with a rare genetic eye disease that impaired her vision, but she has not let it stand in the way of success and her passion for history.
Kacmarcik, 316th Wing deputy historian, was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a genetic eye condition that she said has left her with “about 50 percent” sight, leaving her to rely mainly on her peripherals. She had routine visits to an optometrist for nearsightedness, for which she wore glasses, but the condition progressed to the point that she could not read a textbook or see the “big E” on an eyechart. While the disease usually “levels off” after childhood, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, there is currently no cure.
Growing up in Hampton, N.H., she rejected the idea of attending special schools and stayed in public schools. After high school, she moved to Washington, D.C., to attend George Washington University, where she graduated with a degree in history.
Meeting Charlie, her service dog:
Since her sophomore year of college, Kacmarcik’s service dog, Charlie, an English labrador, has been her sidekick navigating the world. She first felt the need for a service dog after moving to the area to attend GWU and “a few close calls with the D.C. drivers.”
Charlie is a graduate of the Guide Dog Foundation, which trains dogs to assist people with visual impairments. Following a year of basic obedience training and three months of guide training, the dogs are paired with their humans for a two-week acclimation course, which is how Kacmarcik and Charlie met.
“He was the biggest dog in the class and definitely the unruliest,” she said with a laugh.
Each workday, Charlie guides Kacmarcik from her apartment in Washington to a Metro station, where they ride a train into Maryland before catching a bus to Joint Base Andrews.
An early love for history:
Kacmarcik’s passion for history began at a young age–prior to her diagnosis with Stargardt disease–when she went on a field trip with her Girl Scout troop visiting the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H. Similar to Colonial Williamsburg, Strawbery Banke is a living history museum with re-enactors, restored homes and buildings representing eras from the 1600s to the 1950s.
“You get to go through time and see how people lived in Portsmouth throughout those years,” she said. “For example, you walk into a house that was restored to 1943, and half of it was a corner store, and half of it was a kitchen.”
After that visit, she attended summer camps at the museum where participants were taught how to be re-enactors, which led her to volunteer as a re-enactor throughout middle school and high school and serve as a volunteer intern in college.
“I just fell in love with history, even more being immersed in it,” she said.
Growing passion in college years:
One of the last books she physically read before her vision became impaired was a memoir of the Holocaust. It was a historical period that piqued her interest in history the most as a child.
“Something about the horribleness of humanity, but also people’s ability to overcome and rebuild their lives in the aftermath was really powerful and impressionable on a 10-year-old,” she said.
As Stargardt disease started to affect her, she said those stories resonated and helped her get through the tough moments.
“My disability is largely invisible, and I have worked hard to make it look like I was normal,” she said. “Getting a guide dog was the first time I was physically identifying myself as a visually impaired person, never mind something I was doing for my safety.”
In college, she took on a biography project for a course about someone from her hometown who perished during the D-Day invasion. She chose Army Pfc. Stanley M. Miesowicz, who is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France.
“That class honestly saved me because I knew there was something for me to live for and keep going,” she said. “I felt like I had a broader mission at that point, and I had to tell Stanley Miesowicz’s story.”
Kacmarcik was able to connect with one of Miesowicz’s nieces and received letters he sent to his mother. The biography she wrote followed him from when he enlisted until he went to England and ultimately perished less than two weeks after D-Day.
Over spring break that year, Kacmarcik and her 15 classmates travelled to Normandy and visited major battlefield sites as well as some off the beaten path. Each student delivered a eulogy at the gravesite of their biography subject.
“Giving a eulogy at the gravesite of our service member was a super powerful moment to really feel connected to history in those moments,” she said. “Oftentimes no one remembers who these people are, and this is the first time that their biographies are written. The average age of a service member who died in World War II was 20 or 21. Most of them didn’t have children, so there was no legacy.”
Initially, she gravitated to the Holocaust and other social aspects of the World War II era, but said she wasn’t interested in the “boots on the ground” operations until taking the course.
Writing history:
After graduating from GWU, Kacmarcik joined the 316th Wing Historian office in January. She quickly discovered the historical significance of the base. Known for supporting presidential and vice-presidential air travel, Andrews has welcomed numerous distinguished visitors and heads of states through “America’s Airfield.”
Some projects Kacmarcik and the 316th Wing historian, Sarah Barksdale, have been working on include an online museum exhibit with photographs, text, audio and video that showcases the base’s history, which they aim to launch in about a year. Kacmarcik has also been able to document several events, such as the 2024 NATO Summit and the return of U.S. citizens who were imprisoned in Russia.
“History is always constantly being made constantly being created,” she said. “It is a little weird being trained as a historian and writing about what’s currently happening today.”
Technology assistance:
Throughout her academic and professional journey, technology has been a vital aid for Kacmarcik. In college, she began using Bookshare, a service with more than a million titles including textbooks and audio books.
However, it was critical for her not to just have a textbook but sometimes a specific edition of that book with footnotes and a different forward. If that version wasn’t available digitally, the spine of that actual book would have to be cut off and then scanned and reformatted for her.
“Sometimes that took a long time – two or three months,” she said.
In her role at the historian’s office, the workload leans significantly towards reading reports and combing through archives. To read most text-based files, Kacmarcik uses ZoomText Fusion, an assistive technology program that magnifies text on a computer monitor.
She also uses Voice Dream Reader, which converts PDFs, textbooks, emails, news articles and more to speech. Scouring through the wing archives and old newspapers, she uses her phone or iPad to take pictures to view on a larger monitor.
Advice for others:
For others with disabilities, Kacmarcik offers three tips:
- Build a support network. She said she relies a lot on her parents – even though they are still in New Hampshire, she stays in touch, and they will “hop on a plane and come help me if I really need it.”
- Learn to advocate for yourself. “It took me a long time to learn to do that well into high school. I was not comfortable doing that for the longest time because I didn’t want to be pushy or anything like that.”
- Find a passion. “I’ve accepted my disability and moving past that with something that I’m passionate about. That’s why I’m so grateful that I have history – that will always be me rock.”
| Date Taken: | 10.30.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.31.2024 12:10 |
| Story ID: | 484228 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND, US |
| Hometown: | HAMPTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE, US |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Through the lens of resilience: How a historian confronts vision challenges, by Patrick Griffith, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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