Lisa A. Raney

Picking up extra hours at work the past few weeks has given me the opportunity to spend more time working on my off-desk duties. One of these involves assisting one of the librarians in my department with our library’s contributions to the Library of Congress’ Veteran’s History Project. What I’ve been doing so far is watching oral history interviews that we've collected from area veterans and creating recording logs before we send them off to the Library of Congress. It’s a pretty straight forward task, but involves paying close attention to details along with analysis and research.

I was not exactly thrilled going into this project. Watching videos from men who have gone to war, wielded weapons, and possibly taken other peoples’ lives was not something that was on the top of my priority list. I am a pacifist, and one of the things I’ve always felt very strongly about and is still a large part of my life is to be a peacemaker. Make love, not war, and all that. This made me an oddball history major in college, being more interested in the sociological and cultural underpinnings of events while the majority of my classmates would pore over the intricacies of wars and military history. This aversion may have had something to do with being dragged out to numerous military and aviation museums, sites, and bases as a child, but I digress.

However, I knew that regardless of my personal feelings, I could do the work and would do a good job at it. That was a non-issue. And I knew, from my training in history, library science, and archives, that it is incredibly important to document the individual stories of those who have witnessed events firsthand while they are still alive to tell them. It gives a broader scope of history and I feel validates the experience of each individual veteran. It gives a more authentic account of the events rather than what's in the history books.  

What I did not expect was to enjoy it as much as I have been. These oral histories are incredibly important and I'm finding it very moving to watch them. There is so much humanity in them, as well as a whole heck of a lot of history. I hope everyone gets a chance to hear them, even if just one. And on that same note, I hope these are the last stories anyone ever has to tell about going to war. Some of the things I learn are truly heartbreaking that at times I have to press pause and take a breather before finishing the segment.

There was a WWII Air Forces vet who talked about segregation, not being promoted, and having guns pointed on him by his superiors during target practice simply because he was the “wrong” color. Another one is not an interview, but a documentary created by a vet, using footage shot while stationed in the China Burma India (CBI) theater during World War II as the backdrop to an incredibly informative story. The vet whose interview I’m currently working on has a lilting Scottish accent and has me amazed by all he’s seen by the age of 18, first with the British Merchant Marines and then with the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Some vets whose videos I've worked on so far:

Morgan Russell Deane
Victor M. Shepherd, Jr.
Herbert Blasberg
David Alfred Murray

I will soon be helping out with video editing in addition to my work with the oral history interviews. This project is important and necessary, and has given me perspective from both a personal and professional standpoint. I never say never because I don't like unnecessarily limiting myself, and this project is definitely proof of that. There is value and chance to growth to be found just about anywhere if you only open yourself to it.