The latest Veterans History Project blog highlights a special display celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps, on view December 9, 2025, through January 31, 2026, in the Thomas Jefferson Building. Drawing from collections across the Library of Congress, including oral histories, letters, photographs, posters and personal artifacts, the exhibit brings to life the stories, service and sacrifices of Marines across generations.
Timed around the Project’s 25th anniversary, the display underscores the ongoing mission to preserve and share veterans’ voices, ensuring these stories remain accessible for future generations.
As the Veterans History Project celebrates its 25th anniversary, Director Monica Mohindra reflects on the Project’s mission to preserve and share the firsthand stories of U.S. veterans. This post introduces a 25-part blog series honoring veterans, past leaders and the collective effort that has built a national archive of more than 120,000 personal narratives.
For several years, the U.S. Navy Memorial has hosted students from around the country through its Sea Service internship. As part of the program, interns conduct oral histories of Navy veterans and produce short films based on those interviews. The full interviews are then donated to the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP). For the first time, VHP and the U.S. Navy Memorial are inviting all students in grades 5-12 to create and submit short documentaries featuring the stories of U.S. veterans for the 2025 Sea Service Film Festival. This festival is the perfect opportunity for teachers and parents to get young people involved in documenting and preserving the history of our nation’s veterans. This blog contains the call for entries to the VHP/Navy Memorial Film Festival, including an overview of the festival, submission guidelines, and rules.
The following is a guest blog post by Candace Milburn, liaison specialist with the Veterans History Project. Have you ever wondered what a Warrant Officer does in the military? When I hear the word “warrant,” my mind immediately goes to think about an arrest warrant or police searches. But during a recent documentary screening at …
This post recounts three stories of formal dresses that were made out of World War II silk parachutes. In two cases, they were wedding dresses, meaning that silk once intended for war had been transformed into a symbol of new beginnings. These stories are striking reminders that history isn’t just found in archives or interviews—it’s stitched into uniforms, tucked into footlockers and woven into parachute silk transformed into wedding gowns. These everyday artifacts speak volumes, capturing emotion, memory and meaning in ways words sometimes cannot. The stories come from the collections of the Veterans History Project.
As we stand at the threshold of a new year, it’s a fitting time to reflect on the remarkable stories of those who came before us, especially the courageous women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, highlighted in Tyler Perry’s recent Netflix film, The Six Triple Eight. Just like the beginning of a new …
