Why I interview Elder Veterans

• IN THEIR WORDS (THE WISDOM OF ELDER VETERANS)

• “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” 
  ― Edmund Burke
• To understand today, you have to search yesterday. Pearl S. Buck
• Genealogy, Archealogy, History Tools
• This quote means the present and the future can be predicted from the past, and those who do not grasp this concept, countries or individuals, are probably destined to repeat personal or global fiascos. 
• In Southern history, slaves were not given credit what they did to help build this country, and the Civil War is not even called that in the South, it is called "The War Between States."
• As far as WW11 is concerned, most emphasis now is on the Atom Bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Not much written about the build up to Pearl Harbor and the reason for it. Also, not much is known about the "unknown war of 1941" where Nazi u-boots sank over 200 of our merchant ships off our coast, and even invaded a couple of small isolated ports on the North Carolina Outer Banks. 
• Japan was a militaristic imperialistic country who had invaded and taken over Manchuria, China and parts of Indochina plus many islands in the Pacific. President Roosevelt told them to leave China, and after they refused. He ordered our country not to supply them with steel and oil, which they desperately needed. They even declared war on us first. 
• We all know about Germany and the Holocaust, however little is known about their sinking of our boats, invading our country and then declaring war on us Dec. 18, 1942 a day before we declared war on them.
• Our country was in quite a bind then with Japan on one coast and Germany on the other. The government naturally got the draft going quickly and training some unlikely soldiers for combat. I have interviewed a fiesty little 95 y.o. vet. WAC who had been trained to shoot machine guns M-40 and M-60 for a year. She was disappointed that after all that, she did not get to go "kill the bad guys." Yet, when I asked her advice for the future generations, ironically, she said "to love everybody." Also, I did not know the Marines took women, however 94 y.o. Francis did not have a choice when enlisting. She was already a professional Drafter, so they used in skills in Washington. When I asked her what Marine women were called, as Navy females were Waves, she said I don't know "Big Ass Marines" with a smile on her face. She also hitchhiked as a young woman from New Jersey to Florida. Surprised, I responded "well, if you were a Marine, I guess you would hitchhike."
• 
  
• Retired Lt. Colonel Larry Dandridge, who wrote BLADES OF THUNDER about Vietnam "Helicopter" war writes that our country does not know the history, culture and, tragically, the  allies of the countries we go to invade post WW11. 

I am a volunteer at the VA Palliative Care and Hospice Unit. I enjoy listening to the stories of the old veterans there. When the volunteer supervisor heard some of the stories, he asked me to interview them for the Veterans History Project for the Library of Congress. This is a volunteer job and I am dedicated to interviewing many as possible, as most are in nursing homes and hospices. I have interviewed 28 in a 200 mile radius. Many are in hospice units, and several have died since I started this project about 6 months ago. That is why I consider this an urgent project. Also, I have interviewed a couple of older Korean and Vietnam vets.