Time marches on and the veterans of many of America's wars continue to age, but the temporal and geographic distance from their experiences in the military don't make their memories any less personal or worthy of documenting for future generations.
"We hear about war and everything, but it's just not the same," Helias Catholic High School student Lauren Roy said Tuesday after she and fellow student Natalie Landwehr interviewed U.S. Army veteran Ted Fry, of Tebbetts.
The students video-recorded their interview with the Vietnam War veteran, and it will be submitted to the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project - an oral history project that aims to preserve veterans' stories and artifacts they're willing to donate to the library.
Helias opened sign-ups for local, honorably discharged veterans to schedule interviews on Veterans Day, and those interviews began last month. Tom Emmel, Helias' Advanced Placement U.S. history and American government teacher, said Tuesday that 10 veterans had been interviewed so far, with two more scheduled daily for the next three weeks.
Interviews include American veterans of conflicts in Afghanistan, Korea, and the European and Pacific theaters of World War II.
Helias juniors do most of the interviews in the school's library with questions provided by the Veterans History Project, but they have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions of their own. The students and Emmel have some mobile recording capability, too, if veterans can't leave retirement or veteran homes.
Students in Emmel's AP U.S. History class can use the interviews as part of their requirement to do primary research - working with and analyzing sources as historians do.
Fry said a newspaper reporter interviewed him about 10 years ago. While he said, "I'm pretty open," he added he found it easier to speak with Roy and Landwehr.
"I did not have to go out and pull guys out of holes or drag them through rice paddies," he said of his experiences as a combat medic and operating room technician with the 326th Medical Battalion of the 101st Army Airborne Division. He didn't do many "forward things" - wasn't involved in any firefights, wasn't stationed at a field hospital and didn't volunteer for air medevac missions - and he usually treated less serious injuries like cuts, burns and shrapnel wounds at Camp Eagle.
That doesn't mean he didn't experience things he usually hasn't shared the half of with other people, but did with Roy and Landwehr: sheltering from a rocket and mortar attack next to a fuel depot; treating who a burn victim who died; being in an armed standoff with South Vietnamese allies; and knowing a man who was terrified of premonitions of his death, who Fry said he found out stepped on a landmine a few weeks later and whose name is now on the Vietnam Memorial Wall with the other killed Americans.
The questions weren't all about his war stories, though. "A lot of service (people) never see combat," Emmel said.
Per their script of questions from the Veterans History Project, Roy and Landwehr asked Fry about his other experiences, such as training at Fort Leonard Wood and Fort Sam Houston, how he communicated with family while he was in Vietnam, what it was like readjusting to life at home after his military service, and lessons he learned from service.
The students also asked him about what he did for fun during his downtime in Vietnam. He said someone managed to find a set of pool balls and cues, and a day room with a pool table became popular. He stayed out of the multi-thousand-dollar-stakes poker games, though.
"I didn't want to cross any lines" and be insensitive with questions, Roy said of her approach to the interview. It was her and Landwehr's first.
However, there are no answers without questions.
"These are stories we wouldn't get to hear otherwise," Landwehr said.
"I think they're a resource that allows students to learn," Emmel said of veterans' experiences.
Other area Catholic schools during Catholic Schools Week this week did military-themed activities. An Army recruiter spoke to students at Our Lady of the Snows School in Marys Home. St. Stanislaus School in Wardsville had students make valentines for veterans.
Helias students' interviews with veterans are not Catholic Schools Week-specific events, but Emmel said there are connections to be made between ideas of service and service members.
He said Catholic Schools Week is about understanding service to God and community, "and here are people who gave of themselves," he said of military veterans.