The Library of Congress and its American Folklife Center invite you to join us in an important national project–the Veterans History Project. This project will honor our nation’s war veterans and those who served in support of them. How? By creating a lasting legacy of recorded interviews and other documents chronicling veterans’ and other citizens’ wartime experiences and how those experiences affected their lives and America itself.
- Military service during a time of war is the highest sacrifice a citizen may make for his or her country.
- 4,700,000 Americans served in World War I, 16,500 Americans served in World War II, 6,800,000 Americans served in the Korean Conflict, 9,200,000 served in the Vietnam Conflict, 3,800,000 Americans served in the Persian Gulf War, and countless other Americans served in military engagements overseas throughout the 20th century.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that there are almost 19,000,000 war veterans living in this Nation today.
- Today there are only approximately 3,400 living veterans of World War I, and of the some 6,000,000 veterans of World War II alive today, almost 1,500 die each day.
- Oral histories are of immeasurable value to historians, teachers, authors, journalists, film makers, scholars, students, and citizens of all walks of life.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Veterans History Project is to collect the memories, accounts and documents of war veterans and of those who served in support of them from World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars, and to preserve their stories of experience and service for future generation.
Goals
To stimulate opportunities for public learning, by inviting, advising, and supporting individuals and groups as participants in the Veterans History Project
To engage veterans associations, military organizations, institutions of higher learning, historical societies, libraries, civic groups, and ongoing veterans oral history projects as projects as partners in the effort to identify, interview and collect documents from war veterans and those who served in support of them. To preserve and present the collected material to the public, through the Library of Congress exhibitions, publications, public programs, and web site.
To identify existing and ongoing veterans oral history programs and archives, and to recognize and work with them to expand the Library’s Veterans History Project initiative.
To create a comprehensive searchable national catalog of all oral histories and other documentation collected as a result of this project.
To learn more, go to http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/.
Mark Criner
2803 Fairmount St.
Wichita, KS 67220
(316)683-2273