Validating the Vets

Volume 30
Fall-Winter
2004

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He recalled walking up the front steps of the house and standing on the porch. Looking through the front window into the house, he saw his father reading the paper, his young wife knitting, and his mother busy preparing supper. Overwhelmed with emotion, he paused...

Mary Zwolinski is Director of Folk and Community Arts Programs of The Arts Center of the Capital Region, as well as the current president of the New York Folklore Society.

New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
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Validating the Vets: A Legacy of Experience and Service by Mary Zwolinski

The Library of Congress initiative to collect the oral histories of American veterans comes at a critical time. Our country’s political and international history, now more than ever, will be defined by its participation in military events away from home. From aging World War II vets to the most recent Iraq War participants, the first-hand experiences of those individuals whose lives were directly affected by their involvement in those events may prove to be the most accurate and moving records of all.

But that’s my own perspective. My involvement in oral history projects—including stories of former residents of New York’s psychiatric hospitals and the recollections of Puerto Ricans who moved to Amsterdam, New York, in the 1930s to work in the textile mills—has had a profound impact on me. I have always been changed by the stories people share with me and humbled by the things I’ve heard. The sharing of personal experiences—happy, sad, embarrassing, or tragic—involves an intimate exchange between teller and listener. When I had the opportunity to be a workshop leader for the Veterans Oral History Project, I was excited. This was a group whose experiences I had not heard or recorded from primary sources. An oral history workshop leader has an important responsibility, because there may be only one chance to collect a story and, sadly, only one opportunity for someone to tell it.

The first workshop I facilitated was for a group of students at Shaker High School in Albany. It was cosponsored by the AARP, and several of their staff and board members were there to observe and participate in the interviews of local veterans. I was to lead workshops for two very distinct cultures—the students and the AARP members—and each posed challenges and opportunities.

In developing contextual materials that would help the students understand the importance of the project, I asked myself several questions. How do you describe to teenagers the significance that the military services and international conflicts have on their own current and future lives? How could I convey to them the conflicting sense of patriotism coupled with the apprehension that many young men and women—and their families—feel when they decide to enter the military or are called by our government to go to war? What to make of the fact that previous wars influenced everyday life in America, from food rationing and the women-led workforce during World War II to the antiwar riots on college campuses during the Vietnam War? How could any of these students relate to the wartime deaths of close friends and family members or the cultural and socioeconomic conflicts associated with the draft during the Vietnam era?

Leading an abbreviated workshop for the students was tough. They listened, but it was apparent that the learning curve was too great for such a short session and only a few students would be interested enough to pursue the project on their own. Those who were interested seemed more comfortable running the equipment than composing and asking questions. This is a generation whose experience in terms of “great wars” is limited. Perhaps their grandparents had been involved in the Vietnam War or the Gulf War, but a close and direct link was tenuous at best. Their understanding of the military was most likely based on old television footage or the relentless coverage of more recent skirmishes throughout the Middle East or other far-off places. They had an enthusiastic and passionate teacher who had been collecting the oral histories of veterans for many years; perhaps his dedication would motivate some of them. In the end, however, I couldn’t really know how many of the students would be moved to one day think about or actively capture the stories of veterans.

Another workshop held for the same class and teacher but different students more than a year later proved more fruitful. With the war in Iraq more than a year old and U.S. military casualties increasing, most students felt strongly about the effort. The media had caught their attention. Before we started I polled them to find out who supported the war and who didn’t. It was pretty evenly mixed, with several students stating that they weren’t sure. After the exercise I told them that their opinions about the war didn’t matter for their work as oral historians: they were capturing someone else’s stories and reflections. Oral historians must be careful not to project or inject their own views into the story being told to them.

The AARP folks had a better appreciation for the topics and experiences talked about by the veterans that day. Generational colleagues, several of them had lived through the same times and cultures and could relate to the events and emotions being recorded. As active participants in the daily operations of AARP, they had a vested interest in preserving the stories of their constituents and the roles those individuals played in preserving the freedoms many enjoy today.

Another workshop given in Chappaqua, New York, at the Horace Greeley High School afforded me the opportunity to work with a range of individuals. At that session, three teachers from the school, the school’s principal, an administrator from the Bronx Veterans Association hospital, a former veteran who would be the liaison with other vets, and several individuals from Senator Hillary Clinton’s staff offered differing perspectives on the project and the roles they or their students could play in the collecting of oral histories. Senator Clinton has been a strong advocate of the Veterans Oral History Project, and bringing it home to the community of Chappaqua was a supportive and logical step.

One veteran who was interviewed by an AARP board member as part of the Albany workshop spoke for a long time about his experiences in World War II, the type of ships he had been on, the kind of work he had done. For myself, inexperienced with the technical aspects of war, it was interesting but not very moving. It wasn’t until he started talking about the day he came back from the war that I truly began to listen. His family in Schenectady didn’t know he was coming home. It was dark when he stepped off the train at the Schenectady station and caught a cab to his house. He recalled walking up the front steps of the house and standing on the porch. Looking through the front window into the house, he saw his father reading the paper, his young wife knitting, and his mother busy preparing supper. Overwhelmed with emotion, he paused. It was the happiest moment of his life, and because he wanted to remember it, he just stood there in silence, watching the people he loved and had missed. In my own visualization of the scene, I saw on the porch a very young man, tentative and overcome with feelings, and for the first time I began to comprehend the complex emotions of someone returning from war to his own small family in his own hometown, safe and sound but somehow forever changed. I could only begin to truly appreciate the depth of his experiences and how his tour of duty had influenced people far away, removed from the daily hazards of war. Those experiences would live with him forever—and his story, with me.

The experiences of all veterans are among the most important stories of our time. It is essential that students learn about those experiences firsthand, from the men and women who have lived through them. And it’s important that we document those stories, remember them, and in whatever way we can, validate them. During such turbulent and troubling times as these, they are more important than ever. Maybe I am naïve, but I believe that the stories that are being collected by the Veterans Oral History Project can help shape global discourse and lend a human element to the overpowering effects of war.

"Validating the Vets: A Legacy of Experience and Service" by Mary Zwolinski appeared in Voices Vol. 30, Fall-Winter 2004. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now.