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Category: Veterans History Project

a man in a camouflage uniform

Three Days

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest blog post by Travis Bickford, head of programs and communications at The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP). On August 28, 2005, it was 111 degrees in Baghdad. That kind of heat makes you conspiratorial, like “nah, this ain’t real” kind of heat. I’d only been in country a …

A group of five male soldiers in uniform (one soldier is shirtless) stands between an ambulance and a bunker covered with sandbags.

VHP’s New Vietnam War Research Tools

Posted by: Megan Harris

This Veterans Day, the Veterans History Project (VHP) is proud to debut a pair of research tools to help users discover and navigate our collections related to the Vietnam War. The newest installment of Serving: Our Voices pulls from VHP’s holdings of over 25,0000 narratives relating to Vietnam veterans. For this presentation, we have focused …

One Way to Mitigate the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress

Posted by: Kerry Ward

The following is a guest blog post by veteran and Veterans History Project participant Earl Porter III.  Porter’s VHP interview can be found on our website. On September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I crested Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the start point for southbound Appalachian Trail (AT) “thru-hikers.” The AT is a 2,190+ …

AAPI hosts wokshop and itneriews with VHP Los Angeles, CA, May 2023.

Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month with VHP interviews in Los Angeles

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest blog post by Andrew Huber, a liaison specialist for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP). The idea of an event focusing on collecting stories from Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) veterans all stemmed from a simple question asked during a VHP workshop in 2020. I was teaching …

World War II era photo of Lewis Finkelstein standing on a rocky shoreline. He wears a white sailor hat tilted to the left and a thick jacket buttoned up to his chin.

D-Day and Me: The Importance of Preserving Veterans’ Stories

Posted by: Megan Harris

The following is a guest post by Elaina Finkelstein, a public affairs Specialist in the Library’s Office of Communication.  Today is June 6—a seemingly ordinary Tuesday for some, but for my family, a day spent remembering the harrowing service of my grandfather, Lewis Finkelstein, on the beaches of Normandy, France, in 1944. Through an oral …

Travis Bickford and students at “The Things They Carried” exhibit

Carrying On

Posted by: Lisa Taylor

The following is a guest blog by Travis Bickford, supervisory liaison specialist for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP). Ten years ago, I read Tim O’Brien’s, “The Things They Carried.” Not for any burning desire; I had assigned it to a group of teenagers I was teaching from the south and west sides …

LIVE! At The Library – ‘The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien,’ Thursday, May 11th, 5pm-8pm

Posted by: Kerry Ward

The following is a question-and-answer session with author Tim O’Brien in anticipation of the film screening of The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien with special guest and director of the documentary, Aaron Matthews on Thursday, May 11th from 5pm-8pm at the Library of Congress. Prior to the film, enjoy live music from Gold Star sister, Barbara Martin, …