Combat veterans - where did your memories go? Not as in, "have you lost your memories?" but more to the effect of, "how are you saving them or transmitting them, for posterity?"
This marvelous photograph was taken by photographer Jeremy Hogan, and is used with permission. Hogan wrote the "Poem for My Father" which we blogged about earlier, and in his free time, he's helping to document the history of his father's squadron in Vietnam. He says about this photo, taken over Memorial Day weekend, that the subject is, "Ron Klus, who served with my dad at Quan Loi, and received a Distinguished Flying Cross with an Oak Leaf Cluster. Unfortunately, Klus died due to issues related to his PTSD and now the VA is now denying his widow death benefits."
Recently, I've been privileged to receive several veteran's memoirs, bound up in book form -- one is a work in progress, the other already published. I know that Jeremy is working with at least one of the guys from his dad's old squadron (13th Signal Battalion, part of the 1st Cavalry Division Airmobile), a combat photographer who did multiple tours of Vietnam, on cataloging his old photos, and creating some sort of archive for posterity. That photographer says he's been interviewed as well, and is the subject of an upcoming article in a military magazine, but admits that dredging up the memories has been extraordinarily painful, because all those memories just come rushing back, from where they've been suppressed all these years. That situation is challenging enough -- but what of others, who will die before they set anything down on paper, or on tape, about what they went through? Those memories, painful and otherwise, which capture who the person was, will forever be lost to time. Unless...they're preserved some kind of way.
We've written on this blog before about the exceptional StoryCorps project -- click here for that link -- but what else is there out there, that archives veterans' recorded stories of their adventures and misadventures in combat? (By recorded, we mean "set down" -- which could be on paper, digitally, or taped.) One thing I've run across -- and please let us know if you know of other things like this, that are national in scope, not just regional or local -- is the "Veterans History Project," a project of the "American Folklife Center" at the Library of Congress, linked here.
To participate in the project takes a few easy steps (their words, not mine), and seems pretty straightforward. You register for the project, print the project field kit, prepare f the interview, conduct the interview, and send the resulting work product to the collection at the Library of Congress (of course keeping at least one copy for yourself). Students and teachers can make this an educational project for school credit, -- that information is linked here -- but veterans themselves should think about getting involved. There's even a very cool place on the site where you can search for histories by other people who've participated -- for all you know, you might find a wartime buddy via that search engine, which is linked here.
I recently shared a quick conversation and a hug with longtime Friend of Veterans Maxine Hong Kingston, and asked her my one burning question, which was how long it took veterans before they were willing to talk about their experiences. She said, "20 years." I'm hopeful it doesn't always take that long -- or won't take that long, for the current crop of veterans -- but when you read some individual's war experiences you can see exactly why that would be.
Current veterans like Tony Neff, author of the short autobiographical piece on his injury and convalescence, called "All I Want Is What I Deserve," which was published on this blog a few months ago, definitely took the plunge and jumped right in -- good for him. (His story is linked, here.) I just have the feeling the current group of vets, thanks to the Internet and technology, etc., and their general comfort level with same, is going to break through all previous barriers more quickly with getting their stories told and out there, for the general public and to memorialize what they went through. In fact, it will seem unusual for them not to!
But for everyone else, from previous wars, it's gonna take a little more coaxing and cajoling. So what of it -- is it time to start getting involved, and sharing with the world what only you know and experienced? It might even help your loved ones understand you a little bit better -- and in the process, perhaps help you to understand and forgive yourself a little more, too. Can you hear me cheering you on from the sidelines? That's good -- because that would be the point :-)
