WWII VETS GIVE VERBAL HISTORY LESSON
LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051111/pl_usatoday/volunteersrecordhumanhistoryasveteransrelatewwiimemories;_ylt=Av0vYOq5n8Un8H2izTNp8MJsbEwB;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
STORY:
Volunteers record 'human history' as veterans relate WWII memories
By Emily Bazar, USA TODAYFri Nov 11, 7:55 AM ET
History books, Wanda Driver says, report the facts. They don't report what she calls "human history."
Take D-Day. History books state that on June 6, 1944, Allied troops launched the invasion of Europe by crossing the English Channel and attacking German forces on the beaches of Normandy, France.
But there is another story. A soldier who was there described to Driver watching friends from his high school football team drown after their boat sank.
"That's what you don't hear in history books," says Driver, 76. "The real history of World War II."
To get that deeply personal view of history, Driver is spearheading an effort in her Springfield, Va., retirement community to interview World War II veterans for the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project.
The project is a nationwide effort to collect firsthand accounts from U.S. veterans, some of which can be accessed at www.loc.gov/vets. The project relies on volunteers to submit the stories and to do so quickly in the case of World War II veterans. More than 1,000 of these men and women die every day.
"World War II veterans are our critical population," says Anneliesa Clump Behrend, project spokeswoman. "They're the oldest generation."
The project receives about 200 packets a week that tell tales of American veterans and civilians who supported war efforts from World War I through the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most are oral histories, captured on audio or video. Some are written memoirs and include photographs and military paperwork.
Driver, a member of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation (WIMS) chapter at the Greenspring Village retirement community, was an occupational therapist at Camp Pickett, Va., during the Korean War. Her military career ended after she got married. She and a handful of other WIMS members have completed about 100 interviews - about 15 with women.
At her retirement community, home to more than 2,000 people over age 62, Driver doesn't have trouble finding veterans to interview. A few weeks ago, Driver talked with Frank Seal, who joined the Army in 1943. Seal, 81, is full of stories from his service, from memories of the Battle of the Bulge to his shrapnel wounds.
He recalled a battle that took place in Overloon, Netherlands. Fifteen tanks from his armored division went in, he said. Only one - his - came out. "I think those of us that served over there are proud of what we did," Seal said. "And we want it recorded in stone."
Fran Richardson, 88, is helping record such stories. Richardson was a Red Cross volunteer from 1943 to 1945 in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany.
She believes the oral-history project will help successive generations understand the realities of war.
Veterans "tell you these things that are coming out from way down in their memories that they've buried," Richardson says. "War isn't the stories in the newspaper, the headlines. It's something that ... is with them all their lives."
STORY:
Volunteers record 'human history' as veterans relate WWII memories
By Emily Bazar, USA TODAYFri Nov 11, 7:55 AM ET
History books, Wanda Driver says, report the facts. They don't report what she calls "human history."
Take D-Day. History books state that on June 6, 1944, Allied troops launched the invasion of Europe by crossing the English Channel and attacking German forces on the beaches of Normandy, France.
But there is another story. A soldier who was there described to Driver watching friends from his high school football team drown after their boat sank.
"That's what you don't hear in history books," says Driver, 76. "The real history of World War II."
To get that deeply personal view of history, Driver is spearheading an effort in her Springfield, Va., retirement community to interview World War II veterans for the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project.
The project is a nationwide effort to collect firsthand accounts from U.S. veterans, some of which can be accessed at www.loc.gov/vets. The project relies on volunteers to submit the stories and to do so quickly in the case of World War II veterans. More than 1,000 of these men and women die every day.
"World War II veterans are our critical population," says Anneliesa Clump Behrend, project spokeswoman. "They're the oldest generation."
The project receives about 200 packets a week that tell tales of American veterans and civilians who supported war efforts from World War I through the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most are oral histories, captured on audio or video. Some are written memoirs and include photographs and military paperwork.
Driver, a member of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation (WIMS) chapter at the Greenspring Village retirement community, was an occupational therapist at Camp Pickett, Va., during the Korean War. Her military career ended after she got married. She and a handful of other WIMS members have completed about 100 interviews - about 15 with women.
At her retirement community, home to more than 2,000 people over age 62, Driver doesn't have trouble finding veterans to interview. A few weeks ago, Driver talked with Frank Seal, who joined the Army in 1943. Seal, 81, is full of stories from his service, from memories of the Battle of the Bulge to his shrapnel wounds.
He recalled a battle that took place in Overloon, Netherlands. Fifteen tanks from his armored division went in, he said. Only one - his - came out. "I think those of us that served over there are proud of what we did," Seal said. "And we want it recorded in stone."
Fran Richardson, 88, is helping record such stories. Richardson was a Red Cross volunteer from 1943 to 1945 in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany.
She believes the oral-history project will help successive generations understand the realities of war.
Veterans "tell you these things that are coming out from way down in their memories that they've buried," Richardson says. "War isn't the stories in the newspaper, the headlines. It's something that ... is with them all their lives."
posted by NDwalters @ 12:10 PM
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