W. Thomas Smith Jr.: The invaluable narratives of our veterans should not be lost
... “One minute I saw young men who looked like us — just wearing different uniforms — walking across a quiet field,” [my Uncle Romney, a veteran at Normandy] told me before he died a few years ago. “The next minute, they were running and screaming and being ripped apart and burned.”
My uncles’ stories are similar to those of so many other World War II-era veterans (now numbering less than three million). But each story is also unique — a special narrative-expansion of recorded history, and we are losing them at a rate of over 1,000 per day.
But it’s not just the veterans of World War II: There are some 17 million living American war veterans — from World War I through Iraq and Afghanistan — and the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project is gathering as many of those unique stories as possible before they are lost to history: doing so through family and friend-conducted audio and video-taped interviews with veterans.
“The largest oral history archive in the nation [according to its website] with over 50,000 collections,” the Veterans History Project received a Congressional boost on Monday when House Resolution 770 was passed, calling on all Americans “to interview at least one veteran in their families or communities according to guidelines provided by the Veterans History Project.”
I wish I had done so with my uncles and my dad, a Korean War Veteran, before they passed. But it might have been easier said than done.
“The problem is similar to what Tom Brokaw encountered when he was interviewing veterans for ‘The Greatest Generation,’” Col. Bob Patrick (U.S. Army, ret.), director of the Veterans History Project, tells National Review Online. “The veterans would say, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You weren’t there.’ They’ll talk amongst themselves, but often not to outsiders.”
Beyond that, wartime experiences are experiences that many veterans say are best forgotten.
“They don’t want to open that door again,” says Patrick, who also directed the National World War II Memorial Project through its 2004 dedication.
Veterans do however often choose to talk about their experiences as they near the end of life.
“Maya Angelou once said, ‘There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you,’” says Patrick. “So I think many veterans eventually want to rid themselves of the burden, clear the deck so to speak. It’s all about timing, and the time is often later than sooner.”...
Read entire article at National Review
My uncles’ stories are similar to those of so many other World War II-era veterans (now numbering less than three million). But each story is also unique — a special narrative-expansion of recorded history, and we are losing them at a rate of over 1,000 per day.
But it’s not just the veterans of World War II: There are some 17 million living American war veterans — from World War I through Iraq and Afghanistan — and the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project is gathering as many of those unique stories as possible before they are lost to history: doing so through family and friend-conducted audio and video-taped interviews with veterans.
“The largest oral history archive in the nation [according to its website] with over 50,000 collections,” the Veterans History Project received a Congressional boost on Monday when House Resolution 770 was passed, calling on all Americans “to interview at least one veteran in their families or communities according to guidelines provided by the Veterans History Project.”
I wish I had done so with my uncles and my dad, a Korean War Veteran, before they passed. But it might have been easier said than done.
“The problem is similar to what Tom Brokaw encountered when he was interviewing veterans for ‘The Greatest Generation,’” Col. Bob Patrick (U.S. Army, ret.), director of the Veterans History Project, tells National Review Online. “The veterans would say, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You weren’t there.’ They’ll talk amongst themselves, but often not to outsiders.”
Beyond that, wartime experiences are experiences that many veterans say are best forgotten.
“They don’t want to open that door again,” says Patrick, who also directed the National World War II Memorial Project through its 2004 dedication.
Veterans do however often choose to talk about their experiences as they near the end of life.
“Maya Angelou once said, ‘There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you,’” says Patrick. “So I think many veterans eventually want to rid themselves of the burden, clear the deck so to speak. It’s all about timing, and the time is often later than sooner.”...