This week on the podcast I’m excited to be talking to Monica Mohindra. She is the Director of the Veterans History Project (VHP) of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. In this episode, we focus on VHP. VHP is highlighting the importance of collecting veterans stories. We also discussed how the information collected by the VHP. And finally we discuss how the informaiton is used and how you can get involved. Because it is Women’s History Month we also highlighted the stories of the 6668th Central Post Directory Battalion and a few other amazing women from history. If you want to share your story of service or know a veteran who you think might be interested, you can learn more at loc.gov/vets
Veteran History Project
The Veterans History Project collects, preserves and makes accessible the personal accounts of U.S. military veterans. VHP does this so that future generations may hear directly from veterans. Their goal is to allow people to better understand what veterans did, saw and felt. The Library of Congress collects oral history through interviews. They also collect photos, letters, journal or any other piece that a veteran would like to contribute to share their story of service.
The best part about adding your story to the VHP is that it not only will allow future generations and families to find your history. But they also have people come to research the stories of veterans for work on various projects including books, murals, sculptures. VHP’s work was even used to inspire a ballet.
Collecting more stories of women
Currently, of the 65,000 stories collected only 6.5% of the stories are from women veterans. VHP knows the value and importance of collecting the stories of women and does not want to lose those stories. The stories collected range from WWI to present day. Just like the Women of the Military podcast is capturing the stories of women veterans the VHP hopes to hear more stories from women. If you would like to share your story you can learn more here.
Women veterans history
VHP wants to highlight the stories of the 6888th Central Post Directory Battalion. They were the first and only all female, all African American battalion to be deployed overseas. They faced many challenges including discrimination. The 6888th were also given the impossible task of sorting and sending out millions of pieces of mail. Mail that had been a growing backlog during WWII. Other women stories that were mentioned during the interview were the code girls, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service “WAVES”, Marine Reserve and Coast Guard Reserve.
