Helias High School opened an opportunity on Veterans Day for veterans to contribute their recorded stories to posterity.
Helias juniors are working with the Library of Congress to look for U.S. veterans who have been honorably discharged to take part in an oral history program.
"It has not been done around central Missouri for I'd say five or six years," Tom Emmel said Monday of the Veterans History Project. Emmel teaches American government and AP U.S. history at Helias, and he's also the contact person for veterans who'd like to participate in the school's work with the Congressionally-created program.
"The Veterans History Project hopes to gather historical information from veterans for future research. Veterans will be asked a series of questions provided by the Veterans History Project. After hearing the answers, follow up questions will be asked. All total, this should take about an hour," a news release said.
In practice, Emmel said this means Helias students would like to talk to veterans in a "non-descript" setting, which can incline veterans to open up and share their stories. He said veterans can expect the interviews themselves to last at least 30-40 minutes.
He said Helias would like to get as many veterans as possible to the school in-person from January through March, when students will have a small recording studio set up at the school's library with an SLR camera on a tripod and an attachable microphone.
"We're about as mobile as we can get," he said, adding students will be able to go to retirement or veteran homes if necessary but cannot go to veterans' private homes because of rules from the Diocese of Jefferson City for students' protection. Students will also be able to do interviews through the internet via video chat services.
Students will conduct the interviews one-on-one or in a pair with each veteran and are free to expand upon questions, Emmel said. He added the recorded video files will be sent via DVD to the Library of Congress, where they will become part of a larger database of historical accounts after about four to six months.
He explained the idea is to gather enough stories to create historical records for specific times and places. For example, people can query a particular ship that sailed in a particular year and look up corresponding accounts.
"If veterans have artifacts they would like to donate to the Library of Congress, these artifacts will be kept for posterity. All video interviews, as well as copies of artifacts, will be available for review by the summer of 2018," the news release said.
Emmel clarified the Library of Congress does want to receive and keep the originals of any artifacts veterans would like to contribute.
He said the idea for Helias to contribute to the project came after brainstorming with Mark Ordway, who teaches American history and other social studies classes at Helias. Ordway is also an assistant track and field and assistant girls basketball coach.
And he is a Missouri National Guard veteran who was deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004.
Emmel is not a veteran, but his father served in the Korean War, specifically at the Chosin Reservoir.
"The veterans need to tell their stories," he said.
Helias asks veterans to visit the school's website to sign up for interviews for the Veterans History Project. The website opened Saturday, and will close at 11:59 p.m. Monday, Jan. 1. "At that time, juniors will make contact with veterans and arrange a videotaped interview," the news release said.
Veterans with further questions can contact Emmel at [email protected], or by phone at school at 573-635-6139.
The website for the Veterans History Project is http://loc.gov/vets.