Approved unanimously by the U.S. Congress in October 2000, the Veterans History Project involves collecting stories and experiences of veterans of all wars as part of a nationwide program tied to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Board members of AHS approved our participation in this project in the summer of 2007, but limited only to collecting the experiences of World War II, Korean and Vietnam veterans living in the CSRA.

To date we have interviewed over 1000 veterans of WWII and the Korean War by volunteer interviewers on both the Georgia side as well as in Aiken to include veterans living on either side of the Savannah River. Once a veteran is identified, and initial telephone contact is made to collect basic information regarding their service. A volunteer is then given this information as a lead-in prior to visiting the veteran at his/her residence for more personal information and to fully explain the purpose of the project. After appropriate research and preparation for a video recorded interview, the volunteer sets a date for the camera operation. If necessary, those veterans who have health issues are usually interviewed at home or in a health center.

After the video is completed, a set of DVD’s (four) are produced. One goes to the veteran, one to the Library of Congress, and two will remain at Reese Library at Augusta University for current and future historical reference. Prior to sending the DVD to Washington, the volunteer will record significant comments form the interview on a logging form, will complete a short background data sheet and include any photographs or personal documents for submission to the Library of Congress. A special committee has recently been formed to review all of the completed and up-coming videos to develop a document of appropriate interviews that will become a publication sponsored by AHS. Mark Albertin of Scrapbook Video Productions produced a DVD titled: Memories of War – Augusta Area veterans remember World War II. The DVD includes a sampling of area veterans from all the principal service organizations: Army, Navy, Air Corps, Marines, etc.

We continue to have an open invitation to all veterans in the Greater Augusta area who served during World War II, Korean and Vietnam, since we have no deadline for completion of the project. In addition, we are still looking for interested individuals who would like to help with the interview process.

Finally, individuals who live out of the area but have connections with relatives and/or friends in the CSRA who are World War II, Korea or Vietnam veterans can be included in the project provided they are here for one or more days on a visit and have time for an interview. To date, we have veteran interviews from residents of Arizona (2), Charleston, Charlotte, Atlanta and Savannah. We will be happy to hear from interested individuals about any of these details by telephone or email and welcome any suggestions beyone what has been done to date.