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VETERANS RECORD HISTORY -- Veterans History Project

preserves memories for future generations.

 

 

Story here... http://www.aspentimes.com/
article/20070204/NEWS/102040058

Story below:

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Veterans record history

Project collects the recollections of those who served

By Charles Agar
Aspen, CO Colorado

ASPEN — Wearing a blue navy blazer full of military ribbons, U.S. Army veteran Dr. George Evseeff came to GrassRoots TV Friday to sit before the cameras and record his experiences as part of the Veteran's History Project.

Born in Manchuria, the son of White Russians fleeing communism in 1919, Evseeff arrived in the United States at the age of 17, putting himself through medical school in Michigan before he was shipped to Europe as a medic with Patton's 3rd Army at 24.

"We didn't know anything about the German breakthrough," Evseeff said. But on a cold, snowy day in the Arden Forest of Belgium, they ran into German paratroopers in what would be known as the Battle of Bulge, the last German offensive in World War II.

"We were outnumbered at the time so we had to seek shelter," he said.

The 87-year-old Evseeff also recounted his Christmas of 1944, which he spent eating raw potatoes with 12 other soldiers in the cellar of a Belgian farmhouse. His story is one among the many being recorded and catalogued for the Library of Congress in Washington.

The U.S. Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 to record the lives and stories of war veterans, particularly veterans of World War II and Korea who are getting older. Volunteers from across the U.S. conduct interviews that are collected in the Library of Congress.

Darryl Grob, captain of the Aspen Volunteer Fire Department and a veteran of the Vietnam War, has his own story to tell, but he's thrown in with area veterans and filmmakers to chronicle his comrades.

Grob filmed and photographed Veterans Day and Memorial Day events in Aspen for years. Then he read an article in a trade publication about Ron Langer, a psychologist, and Wayne Williams, a Vietnam veteran and filmmaker (both from Denver) who were busy chronicling veterans with the Veterans History Project.

When Grob met Williams at the memorial service of longtime Aspen Fire Chief Willard Clapper Sr., the two joined forces.

"Then the circle started to expand," Grob said.

With money from the Aspen Elks Lodge and with the help of area veterans like Dick Merrit, a retired lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Marines and veteran of Vietnam, as well as Howard Berg, a U.S. Marine veteran of Vietnam, and Corby Anderson at GrassRoots TV, the group arranged 12 interviews of area veterans over two weekends.

Bob Perigo, a valley resident, is a retired petty officer third class with the U.S. Navy. He served 32 months in Vietnam with a support detachment called the "Brown Water Navy" for their work on Vietnamese rivers, and he told his story to Langer for the cameras.

Langer is a retired clinical psychologist with the Veteran's Administration in Denver. He's been working with military veterans for more than 25 years and said the benefits of the project are two-fold: Veterans are able tell their stories and come to terms with their experiences; then they can share those stories with family and friends.

"It has turned out to be a therapeutic," Langer said. "It's a way to find out what really happened and put it to rest."

"It wasn't hard," Perigo said of his interview Friday. "Ron's open and he knows us. I felt OK telling him about it."

"Each veteran's war is different," Langer said.

And there is an urgency to the work.

"Our veterans are passing away and we have to record this," Merritt said.

Williams said an average of 1,000 veterans die every day, and he is hurrying to record their stories wherever he can.

There will be another interview session at GrassRoots on the weekend of March 16. Area veterans plan to convene a steering committee, and on March 28, the group will meet with members of Aspen Historical Society for a roundtable discussion about the continuing project.

"Every person is the sum of their experience," Grob said. "And veterans, by virtue of the fact that they've had an experience outside the norm, have important stories to tell."

For more information about the Veterans History Project, call (888) 371-5848 or visit www.loc.gov/vets.

Charles Agar's e-mail address is cagar@aspentimes.com.

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Larry Scott  --