Toledo

Raymond Brittainas Pearl Harbor experience, featured on Tuesday, is chronicled in aForever a Soldier,a one of two books published by the Veterans History Project and National Geographic. Increasingly, authors and scholars rely upon oral histories from the VHP collection to inform their work:

aC/ aThrough Veterans Eyesa by historian Larry Minear (Potomac Books, 2010), http://larryminear.com ;
aC/ aWe Were Piratesa by authors Robert Schultz and James Shell (Naval Institute Press, 2009), http://www.robertschultz.us/nonfiction_wwp.htm ;
aC/ aOfficer, Nurse, Womana by Professor Kara Vuic Dixon (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); http://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/ecom/MasterServlet/GetItemDetailsHandler?iN=9780801893919&qty=1&source=2&viewMode=3&loggedIN=false&JavaScript=y ;
aC/ aWhat a Time it Wasa by author Andrew aBuda Fisher (University of Toledo Urban Affairs Center Press), http://utoledopress.com ;
aC/ aLegacies: Stories from the Second World Wara by long-time VHP contributor Tom Swope, http://hamakuapublishing.net/LEGACIES–Stories_from_the_Second_World_War.html .

These titles are further ways the stories of Americaas veterans are accessible to families and future generations. Pledge to record the story of the veteran in your life so that it will be preservedajust as Raymond Britainas is.

It all started in when Timothy Lloyd, a professor at Ohio State University and executive director of the American Folklore Society, became the Ohio VHP coordinator. He contacted University of Toledo professor Tom Barden, who became the northwest regional coordinator for Northwest Ohio.

Dr. Barden arranged for the Ward M. Canaday Center of Special Collections in the University of Toledoas Carlson Library to oversee regional efforts. A acall for volunteersa from Dr. Barden caught the notice of Bud Fisher, and that is how Mr. Fisher began the process of recording over 500 stories. Original interview recordings of veterans were sent to the Library of Congress, and copies of the interviews were archived locally and given to veterans.

The University of Toledo Urban Affairs Center Press recently published aWhat a Time it Was: Interviews with Northwest Ohio Veterans of World War II,a which features a selection of the over 500 oral history interviews Mr. Fisher recorded.