Making History Project – Veteran Oral History Preserving Veterans’ Stories

NEH Grant Supports new course “War, Trauma, and the Humanities” As an update for my upcoming work on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant (Dialogues on the Experience of War), I wanted to share with you all the very cool poster promoting the new college course for this fall. The course will be given at Governors State University, located in Chicago, …

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Veteran oral history interview for WWII Veteran Harald Mayrock is now available. Patrick Russell completed this interview on February 10, 2015, in Lima, Peru. WWII Veteran Harald Mayrock is a German Paratrooper from the 7th Paratrooper Division, 1st Company. Harald was born in Lima, Peru. As fate would have it, Harald’s father, who was German, took Harald to Germany to …

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PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Combat trauma, a component, variant, or synonym for PTSD (depending on whom you speak to), is a specific research interest in the oral history interviews that I conduct. My presentation at the 2015 Oral History Association conference provides some poignant examples for this topic. In short, I am investigating whether combat Veterans across the generations …

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US Paratrooper – 82nd Airborne and POW Veteran oral history interview for WWII Veteran Brodie Hand is now available. Patrick Russell conducted this interview on November 5, 2016, in Charleston, South Carolina during the annual reunion for the Family and Friends of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment Association. Brodie Hand is an American Paratrooper from the 508 P.I.R. of the …

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The new Board of Directors page for the Making History Project is now available for review on this website. Our voluntary Board now includes Dr. Andrae Marak, Ph.D., SGM Francis Gene Garren (Ret.), and Mark Meland, Esq. We are very proud of our new Board of Directors and urge you to visit the new page to see a personal biography …

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US Paratrooper – 82nd Airborne The Veteran oral history interview for WWII Veteran Robert Chisholm is now available. I conducted this interview in Dallas, Texas on October 17, 2014, during the annual reunion for the Friends and Family of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment. Robert Chisholm is a highly decorated Paratrooper from the 508 P.I.R. of the 82nd Airborne. Robert was …

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US Combat Engineer – 249th Engineer Combat Battalion Veteran Oral History interview for WWII Veteran Robert Shelato is now available. We conducted this interview on June 4, 2014, in St. Mere Eglise, Normandy, France. St. Mere Eglise is a small village in Normandy where paratroopers landed early during the D-Day invasion. St. Mere Eglise presently houses an impressive Airborne Museum dedicated …

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US Paratrooper – 82nd Airborne Part 2 of the Veteran Oral History interview of WWII Veteran Rock Merritt is now available. This interview was conducted in Dallas, Texas on October 16, 2014, during the annual reunion for the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne. Rock commanded a heavy machine gun platoon for the 82nd Airborne during World War …

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