Bob Patrick: Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen.
I'm Bob Patrick, and I'm the Director
of the Veterans History Project here in the American Folklife Center
with the Library of Congress.
We are very pleased to have each of you here today
as we announce an exciting cooperative effort
between the Library of Congress,
the public broadcasting service WETA, and filmmaker Ken Burns.
But without any further ado,
to begin our proceedings today it is my pleasure
to introduce the President and CEO of WETA,
Washington's flagship public television and radio stations.
WETA is the sponsoring station for Ken's documentary "The War"
that will begin airing September of this year.
Again, it is my pleasure to introduce Mrs. Sharon Rockefeller.
Mrs. Rockefeller.   [ applause ]
Sharon Rockefeller: Thank you very much, Bob.
It's a pleasure to be here with you and Dr. Billington
in your very own Library of Congress.
This institution has been inspiring people to do great things
for decades, and we know that our announcement today is an indication
that this tradition will continue with pride.
Daddy's being called.   Male Speaker: She reads.
[ laughter ]
Sharon Rockefeller: Find a TV set, put "Sesame Street" on.
[ laughter ]
At WETA we've been privileged to be the production partner of Ken Burns
for more than 20 years, helping to bring to public television
such masterworks as "The Civil War," "Jazz," "Baseball,"
and this September, "The War."
On this project Ken collaborated with his talented co-producer
and co-director Lynn Novak.   Lynn, would you stand?
[ applause ]   Thank you.
Ken Burns and his wonderful team
at Florentine Films are the jewel in the crown of PBS.
While the quality of the programming is the most distinctive aspect
of public television, there's another facet that sets us apart.
We call it outreach.
Outreach gives a PBS program life beyond the broadcast,
enabling a national production to encourage local action.
In support of "The War,"
WETA is implementing a massive outreach plan encompassing both
community and educational outreach.
Inspired by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's dedication
to raising public awareness, we've been able to issue outreach grants
to 117 PBS stations in all 50 states.
These stations will use the funds to extend the reach of Ken's film.
Many stations are producing their own local programming,
looking at the experiences of their local World War II veterans.
Others are organizing events where veterans can share their stories
with their neighbors, their grandchildren
and high school students.
These collected stories will be archived here at the Library
of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project.
Our educational outreach initiative will touch all 15,000 high schools
in the United States, serving to familiarize these students
with this pivotal time in our history.
This effort is made possible by the philosophical
and financial commitment of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
and its president, Pat Harrison, whose unflagging commitment
to public awareness has helped Ken and WETA make a real impact
over the years, both nationally and locally.
We are also extremely grateful to PBS
for its loyal support of Ken and WETA.
With partners like these we can guarantee that generations from now,
citizens both young and old can come to the Library of Congress,
including Olivia, to learn about the personal wartime experiences
of our American veterans.   I'm delighted to introduce
to you now the President of PBS, Paula Kerger.
[ applause ]   Paula Kerger: Thank you, Sharon.
I'm honored to represent PBS and its member stations
at this historic announcement.
As the nation's most foremost documentary filmmaker,
Ken has helped reinforce our reputation as America's storyteller.
And "The War" is just one example of this.
At PBS we take TVs, computers and now iPods and cell phones
and transform their screens into national mirrors,
filling them with content
that reflects the rich diversity of America itself.
This is an awesome responsibility, and we take it very seriously
because of the deep connection we share with our viewers.
This is why, as Sharon articulated,
outreach is so important to the work that we do.
In public television our job isn't
over when the credits roll at the end of our shows.
Our stations are out in the communities,
working with our viewers every day to extend the legacy
of the content we provide.
And in the case of "The War," we're working hard to reach out to a broad
and diverse cross-section of the American public.
I think this is one of our largest, if not our largest outreach effort,
certainly in the 14 years that I've been in public television.
And there are wonderful examples of this throughout the nation.
In Odessa, Texas, for example, PBS station KBBT is working
with the Commemorative Air Force
and the American Air Power Heritage Museum to produce a piece
on the 201st Mexican squadron in World War II.
In Eureka, California, station KEET is producing "Original Patriots,"
a 30-minute documentary that will tell the stories
of local Native American veterans who served during WWII.
And in Tampa, Florida, WEDU is producing a series
of vignettes culled with interviews with local veterans,
including a special segment on Hispanic veterans.
I was in Arkansas two months ago, and they are doing one
of the largest oral history projects in the state, collecting stories
from veterans and recording them for posterity.
Similarly, Wisconsin Public Television
and Maryland Public Television are doing extensive oral history
interviews with veterans in their state, and compiling this footage
into content that will provide a distinctively local complement
to the national presentation of "The War."
All of these efforts come
at a critical moment in our national history.
According to our statistics, including a statistic
that Ken cites often, we are losing our World War II veterans
at a rate of about 1,000 a day.   Our history is dying with them.
That is why this project, every element of it,
from Ken's national film to work being done
by our local stations is so profoundly crucial.
As I like to say, at PBS the word "public" comes first in our name,
and it shapes everything that we do.
This new partnership between Ken, public television and the Library
of Congress will help us reach new heights in achieving this goal,
and that's why we're so very honored to be part of it.
Thank you very much, and now please help me welcome Bob Patrick back
to the podium.   Bob?
[ applause ]
Bob Patrick: Dr. James H. Billington was appointed as the Librarian
of Congress in September of 1987.
He's the 13th individual to hold this distinguished office.
It is my privilege to introduce the Librarian
of Congress, Dr. James Billington.   [ applause ]
Dr. James Billington: Thank you very much, and welcome, and thanks to all
of you who've gathered here for this unveiling, as it were,
of a really exciting and unique adventure in collaboration
and celebration and recording and preserving the stories of service
and sacrifice of America's veterans for America's wars.
We're joined by members
of the Veterans History Project's Five-Star Advisory Council.
We're particularly happy, as well, to have Representative Kind,
who introduced the legislation in Congress
that created the Veterans History Project.
And we're also pleased to have Representative Zach Wamp,
who was instrumental in leading an impressive effort in his district
to collect veteran stories
for the Veterans History Project at a memorable time.
And we have just been honored by the arrival of Senator Richard Lugar,
who is not only a distinguished long-time leader
on the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate,
but he has also directed his staff and his constituency to something
that is a record, I think, in the Congress; the stories of more
than 7,000 veterans in the state of Indiana.
And he even stopped the Indianapolis Speedway for a while
to get this thing on the map.
So it's wonderful to have these three distinguished members
of Congress.   [ applause ]
And it is a real privilege to be collaborating with the marvelous
and unequalled Sharon Rockefeller,
who is such an important person not only
for the state her husband represents,
but for the whole constituency that she's developed,
and for this whole community in which she has a very,
very special place, and Paula Kerger, who we just heard from,
the present CEO of PBS who's done such important service
and graces us with her presence.
And Patricia Harrison, Chairman of the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting who's been so supportive of Ken.
And of course we are especially, I have to say, pleased to have
with us two members of the Veterans History Project Five-Star Council,
who are themselves war veterans with distinguished service.
I take special pleasure in both of these as personal friends,
as well as people that I think we can all admire.
Lieutenant General Julius Becton, US Army retired, was a veteran himself
of World War II, of Korea, Vietnam.
And Brigadier General Don Scott, US Army Reserves,
served two combat tours in Vietnam; also served as the Deputy Librarian
of Congress from 1996 to December 2006.
I'd like both of them to stand and be recognized by us.
[ applause ]
Dr. Erik Olsen, president of the AARP,
member of the Veterans History Project's Five- Star Council.
And the AARP has been helpful in a number of ways with this project,
so we're grateful to him and to them.
Lynn Novak, who's already been mentioned, is co-producer
of "The War," and of course Ken Burns,
the great American storyteller, filmmaker,
and I will turn the microphone over to him in a minute.
But just let me say a few words about the Veterans History Project.
With the support of Congress, the Library has been honored
to be the preserver of America's cultural heritage and history
over the past 206 years, ensuring
that succeeding generations will benefit
and learn from the American past.
The Veterans History Project of the Library
of Congress's American Folklife Center is but one of the programs
that help us accomplish this important, long-held goal.
When you go online to the Web site, you'll see more
than 5 billion electronic transactions last year.
The heart of it is what we call American memory,
and if there's anything more deserving of remembrance
than the sacrifice and the service of our servicemen in times
of war, it's hard to imagine it.
So we're very privileged that this project has been created
by the Congress, unanimously, by both houses.
We've received more than 45,000 individual stories;
one of a kind wartime experiences.
It's the largest oral history project already in the nation,
but it's only beginning because of the volume of people
and the mortality rate, that has already been mentioned,
of our veterans.
It fosters intergenerational contact and appreciation by young people
as they interview veterans and learn about history firsthand.
I have to say, this is one of the most inspiring things
for anyone concerned about keeping the great world of stories
that this institution preserves,
and that is the old reading to the young.
This time it's the young soliciting stories from the old.
And it's a very inspiring thing for the young to learn of the sacrifice
and the service that people they've known as uncles or as friends
or as neighbors down the way; to get these stories.
So it's a particularly great thing to have at this important juncture
in this project; affiliation with PBS
and this remarkable documentary, "The War."
It's a national initiative that we're doing together
that will allow all citizens to take an active role
in recording these veterans' stories for preservation here
at the Library of Congress.
I've been a scholar of sorts over a long period of time,
and I can tell you I've never had more satisfactory interviews
than the ones that I've done for this project myself.
You learn things, you learn the story from the bottom up
and not just from the top down, the way scholars usually study.
And by the way, that's the trend in the writing of history now
in America, but it's also a source of the vitalization
and the activation of a sense of shared purpose
and commonality in our country.
So our vision is for families, entire communities,
educational institutions particularly,
but veterans organizations as well, historical societies,
professional associations, and others to take steps
to begin collecting themselves where they haven't,
or accelerate the ones they were already doing.
We want the stories of all veterans, all conflicts,
all branches of service, to ensure
that we preserve this vital part of American history.
But our attention is currently focused especially
on World War II veterans.
We have, by the way, a pretty good segment of those that survived
from World War I, but that market is now gone, alas.
But World War II, since they are passing away
at this rate that's already been mentioned of almost
about 1,000 each day -- Ken Burns' World War II documentary "The War,"
which will be seen this September, will provide the nation
with the impetus to take on this campaign.
It is, as this whole project is -- this is the bottom up story;
the story that will humanize the wartime experiences
and celebrate the variety of human effort and sacrifice that went
into the wars that we've fought.
With this, of course, Ken brings three decades of experience
in interviewing historians and historical participants.
He's been a very effective user of the resources of this institution,
in "The Civil War" and others of his things -- among other institutions.
He is the storyteller, but he is the storyteller, this time,
of the stories of other individuals who will enlarge our comprehension
and our understanding of what has gone before.
So it's the power of these individual human stories
to help us gain better understanding of epic events,
and a fuller understanding of history.
So, I think you will all join me in the sense of anticipation
of a great documentary series, and of the people who've made
that possible, and of a great project created by the Congress
for which we are the designated executors.
And the fact of coming together in this way, on this subject,
at this time, we think is a great opportunity for us all.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the master impresario
and storyteller himself; someone we've been privileged to work
with before, and are particularly excited
about with this project emerging.
Ladies and gentlemen, "The War's" author and principle executor
and the great storyteller of America today, Ken Burns.
[ applause ]   Ken Burns: Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
Senator, Congressmen, Generals, thank you for your service.
The world that we enjoy today, the luxuries that we take in these kind
of conversations and this magnificent place take place
because of your sacrifice, and we're very grateful
for all that you've done.
And indeed, our film is an attempt to, in a very small way,
try to honor your achievement.
I am so happy to be here today with all of our partners.
I'd like to have Pat Harrison stand;
she has supported every one of the films.
[ applause ]
The Corporation for Broadcasting has funded, I think, every single one
of the films I've made over the last 30 years.
And that is a great tribute to my production partners, WETA,
and particularly my good friend Sharon Rockefeller, to Paula Kerger,
the new, spectacular President of PBS who is taking us
into a new and wonderful era.
And everyone in the system from bottom
to top is very excited about her tenure.
I had the great good fortune, 25 years ago,
making a film about the Statue of Liberty, its history and symbolism,
to interview Vartan Gregorian, who was then the President
of the New York Public Library.
And after an extremely interesting interview
on the meaning behind the statue for an immigrant like him --
he's from Tabriz, Iran --
Vartan took me on a long and fascinating tour
of literally the miles and miles of stacks
of the New York Public Library.
After galloping down one claustrophobic corridor
after another, he suddenly stopped and gestured expansively,
this wonderful roly-poly man, and he said, "This, Ken --
this is the DNA of our civilization."
And I can't help but think how appropriate it is to be
in this most magnificent of libraries, the greatest library
in the history of humankind, the greatest library on Earth --
here, where we store the genetic material of our excellence,
where we look for some sort of genetic memory
of what will carry us on;
that we could announce this spectacular project.
And so it is with great thanks
that I acknowledge the Veterans History Project,
and particularly my friend Jim Billington for permitting us to sort
of join in your whirlwind, to help amplify and multiply the stories
that we're going to tell through the agency of the Library of Congress
and the Veterans History Project.
On September 23, 2007, precisely 17 years to the moment that the
"Civil War" series was broadcast, PBS, WETA here locally,
will begin broadcasting our seven-part,
14-and-a-half hour series on the American experience
in the Second World War, titled very simply "The War."
We had resisted after the "Civil War" series doing anything
about the Second World War for a long time; we didn't want
to immerse ourselves into the necessary --
not only heroism, but suffering and loss and death.
But we were moved, over the course of the '90s,
by two sort of terrifying statistics as friends
and colleagues also bothered us to consider doing the Second World War.
One is the oft repeated statistic
that we are losing 1,000 veterans a day.
Congressman, you said to me this morning it was 1,700 a day.
If that is true, we are looking at a kind of hemorrhage of memory
that we just cannot tolerate anymore in the United States.
And concurrent with this is the knowledge that we're beginning
to appreciate, if that's the word, done by research
by the National Council for History Education, that an ungodly number
of our graduating high school seniors think we fought
with the Germans against the Russians in the Second World War.
So we're hemorrhaging at both ends; we're losing the direct connection
to the stories and the moments of this most important --
the greatest cataclysm in history, as we describe it --
and at the same time our children in our schools have almost no idea
of the most important, consequential war in the history of humankind.
And so we have to do something about it.
Lynn and I set about, nearly seven years ago,
to try to tell a completely bottom up story.
We would forgo the experts, we'd forgo the historians,
the armchair quarterbacks, and instead go out and bear witness
to the testimony of so-called ordinary people,
who of course in extraordinary circumstances remind us there are no
ordinary lives, and to record their testimony unmediated
by the distractions that attend other World War II films
of celebrity generals and politicians, of strategy, tactics,
armaments, weaponry, all things Nazi and German and Hitler,
but to focus on what it was like for Americans to do this.
We further limited our film by picking -- almost darts on a map --
four geographically distributed American towns: Waterbury,
Connecticut in the northeast, Mobile, Alabama in the South,
Sacramento, California in the West, and a tiny farming community
in southwestern Minnesota called Laverne; fewer than 3,000 people.
We went six years to these towns, we immersed ourselves
in their life and culture.
We found out where everybody lived, we went into the libraries,
we looked at the microfilm, we got the old photographs,
the personal home movies of people, and we merged this
with the large public archive housed here in this remarkable institution
across the Mall, at the National Archives and in hundreds
of other archives from Tokyo to Moscow to Berlin to London
to hundreds of private and public archives in the United States
to help tell this bottom up story.
We followed a handful of people who helped bring the war alive.
We were interested in their experiences of battle.
What was it like when that LST opened up at Omaha Beach?
What was it like to land at Palalu or Okinawa or Iwo Jima
or Guadalcanal or Tarawa?
What was it like to freeze in the Battle of the Bulge
in the winter of 1944 or '45?   What was it like to be in that war?
And also, what was it like to be at home?
What was it like to be a kid delivering newspapers and staring
at that little map on the top of the fold, and understanding
in the Battle of the Bulge that the arrow was suddenly going the
other way?
What was it like to be collecting scrap and bacon fat
and milkweed for lifejackets?   What did it mean?
This was the single greatest concerted effort
in the history of the United States.
There were no red states, there were no blue states.
Everyone was all together on this; a valuable lesson we can take today,
as our country is engaged in war,
as we ourselves find ourselves more fractured.
But we knew the choices we made in making these films would be limited;
it would just be bottom up.
There could be only a handful of people
who would be able to tell the story.
As William Blake said, we were looking for a universe in a grain
of sand, and we have, and knew we were going
to not be able to tell so many stories.
So we begin each episode of each of the seven episodes
with a short disclaimer that says "The Second World War was fought
in thousands of places; too many for any one accounting.
This is the story of four American towns
and how their citizens experienced that war."
And we went to public television after we began work on the editing,
about four or five years ago, and said, "With 'The Civil War,
with 'Baseball,' with 'Jazz,' we had produced ad hoc,
at a few stations, a handful of documentaries
about the local interests.
Why don't we make this a bigger thing?"
And thanks to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
and Paula Kerger's leadership we have now reached out,
as was described by Paula.
And so many of our stations, more than 100, are producing films
about the local stories in their communities.
We are covering so many new stories, we are learning
so many interesting things that the broadcast --
and most, let's face it, broadcast television, ladies and gentlemen,
is like skywriting; the first zephyr comes along and it disappears.
But in public television we are here for the long haul.
This educational outreach is not lipstick, it's not a bow;
it's what's going to keep this thing alive for a long time.
So we have literally dozens and dozens
of local films being made, but it's not enough.
As Lynn and I went around and heard these stories
of individual veterans telling what happened to them,
their wives sometimes turning to them in the breaks in the filming
and saying, "Honey, you never told me this,"
or a son who's been urging his father to tell a story saying,
"Pops, you never told us this," we suddenly realized
that this extraordinarily
and admirably reticent generation was now at the end of their lives,
with the intimation of their own mortality facing them day by day --
are now beginning to say, "I want to tell my story."
And a grateful republic needs to be there to do this.
And so we are so thrilled to be able to partner
with the Veterans History Project; to go out and to be able
to take those kids who may not know now who we fought with,
but all who have DV cameras; to have them be able
to download some simple instructions on how to light and how to shoot,
a set of sample questions, and to get grandma and grandpa
or Uncle Charlie, or whoever it is.   All the people we interviewed
in the film are people you could have had Thanksgiving with.
And maybe you did, and maybe next Thanksgiving you ought
to stop before Uncle Charlie loosens his belt to watch the football game,
and ask him what he did when he was 17 or 18 or 19 years old.
And our idea is to collect this wonderful, wonderful body
of testimony that will help us retain this memory
that is hemorrhaging out and will be gone forever unless we capture it.
But can you imagine what this will do, what it will add
to our genetic memory; the amount of DNA information we will now be able
to put in this extraordinary repository?
And so we are just reaching out,
and we think that in some ways we've got a great multiplier here;
that the existence of the television program and the handful
of stories we tell will goad people from every part of the country,
from every walk of life, from every background to tell their story.
This is a wonderful addition to our national narrative,
not told from the top down as history that we're usually presented
with of great men, but of everyone.
The really true, great heroes in a democracy are of course all
of us here, and there are no greater heroes than those who are willing
to sacrifice their lives so that the rest of us may enjoy the luxuries
that we so clearly have today.
I was recently married; my wedding band has inside
of it a very simple and lovely inscription.
It says "Love multiplies," and if you heard my daughter chattering,
you know that that is in fact a truth.
Love does indeed multiply.
And I think at the heart of our pursuit
in this film has been a sense of love, of wishing to gather
in an American family that is often distracted, is often at odds
with one another; that is so dialectically preoccupied
that we talk only about black and white, young and old,
male and female, east and west, north and south,
and forget to select for why we agree to cohere.
This repository celebrates why we agree to cohere, and I'm so thrilled
that we can be able to allow these stories that started off
as just a handful in our documentary to literally multiply beyond number,
perhaps tenfold -- we could expect,
Dr. Billington -- to come to this place.
You may have a tsunami, an avalanche of work before you to do,
but it's the best kind of work that we could have.
And so I am so looking forward to working with everyone here.
And this is an extraordinary partnership,
an amazing cooperation between groups.
And we look forward to working with the Congress and helping
to spread the word not just about our documentary,
but about the expansive educational outreach, and most important,
this grassroots, bottom up attempt to reach and record, potentially,
the veterans who are now beginning to speak.
You know, at his first inauguration, when he still hoped
to keep his countrymen from going to war, Abraham Lincoln said,
not too far from here on a very cold and blustery March day,
this remarkable end of the speech.
He said, "We must not be enemies; we must be friends.
Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection."
But then he went on in this remarkable final sentence
to encapsulate all that I think brings us here today.
He said, "The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave
to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the union
when again touched, as surely they will be,
by the better angels of our nature."
We all like that, the better angels of our nature; so certain as it is
with the perfectibility of these so obviously flawed creatures who like
to call themselves human beings.
But I also like, ladies and gentlemen,
the mystic chords of memory.
These are not C-O-R-D-S, cords of some rope
that would bind us together by force, but C-H-O-R-D-S,
chords of some celestial harmony
that might unite us in some common anthem.
I see this project quite simply as that anthem.
Thank you.   [ applause ]
Dr. James Billington: Anything after that is anticlimactic,
but I just want to say that the importance
of the Veterans History Project as a follower, as a multiplier,
depends on something we aren't usually thinking about; that is,
the ability not only to collect these things,
which is important, but to preserve them.
And we are coming on stream this Spring a national Audio-Visual
Conservation Center that will be the state of the art preservation.
It's a gigantic project in Culpeper, Virginia.
So it's important that these things be --
copies of them be preserved in the local communities
to which you've addressed so marvelously with this project.
But it's also important that they be centrally preserved,
because we also want to get some of them out on our Web site
so that this is shared with a much broader national
and international audience, but also that these be technically preserved,
because most people don't realize that television tape
and audio tapes are very perishable.
And this is going to be the biggest, the most expansive and most state
of the art vehicle for conserving them.
So we want to conserve that precious DNA and all the beautiful chords
that you've summoned up in our own thinking.
And now we want to hear from our distinguished Congressional sponsors
-- originators of this -- practitioners of it.
And we should begin, I think, with Congressman Kind,
who introduced the legislation.
After recording the wartime remembrance of his father and uncle,
he saw the value of preserving stories such as these
and initiated the legislation that enabled
and established the Veterans History Project
in the American Folklife Center here at the Library of Congress.
Congress unanimously passed this in the year 2000.
We're very pleased
to have Congressman Kind here to make some remarks.
Sir.   [ applause ]
Congressman Ron Kind: Thank you, Dr. Billington.
And as all of us were catching our breath
after Ken Burns' statement here, us elected officials
in the front row were looking at each other going, "You can go first.
You can go next.   You're going next."
[ laughter ]   That's a tough act to follow.
But that's what makes being here so exciting, is with Ken Burns
and the PBS partnership and support.
Now with the project we are anticipating a tsunami.
And I heard Bob give out kind of a big breath or sigh or gulp
or something when he heard that coming, but no doubt with this type
of team being put together right now it's going to make our effort
of getting the word out that much easier.
And before I say another word about how this came to be,
I want to offer my sincere thanks
and just commend the entire team here at the Library of Congress,
Bob and Dr. Billington's commitment, and his time and resources
that he's applied to it, but the entire team
who have just done a tremendous job of elevating this project year
after year after year it seems.
And now we're into the seventh year after the creation
of the legislation, approaching close to 50,000 submissions
of oral histories from veterans from across the country.
And sometimes I know they have felt overwhelmed and somewhat powerless
with the number of submissions coming in from our veterans;
not only videotapes, but also diaries and letters and photographs
that have been preserved in family archives throughout the country.
And that's what makes this so exciting,
and that's what makes being here with the greatest storyteller
of our generation, Ken Burns, equally exciting.
I mentioned to Ken in our little meeting before coming over here
that I, along with millions, was inspired with the passion
to learn more about our own great conflict of the 19th century,
the Civil War, only after watching his documentary.
And it touched many lives, and it spurred that historical curiosity
in a whole new generation of Americans.
And I no doubt believe the same will occur when
"The War" is broadcast this Fall with PBS's support; that it's going
to spark a similar type of passion and curiosity
and information gathering from young people to old people alike,
and not a moment too soon.
In light of the aging population that we have in the country
and 1,000 World War II vets a day, 1,700 vets total
that we're losing every day, mainly of the World War II
and Korea era, we've got to get moving.
And we thank him for his support.
This did come to be, at least initially in my mind,
after sitting on Father's Day weekend with my dad and my uncle
at an outdoor picnic table.
And for the very first time I started hearing my dad talk
about his service; a Korean war generation veteran.
And then my uncle, his older brother who served with the bombing crew
in the Pacific during the Second World War;
never before did they speak about this in our family.
And my two little boys were very young,
and I knew they wouldn't understand anything that was being said.
And I told them to stop while I ran into the house,
got the family video camera, set it up and said, "All right,
let's talk about this a little bit," and they did.
And it was so moving to me personally, but preserving
that for my two little boys now, who will hopefully,
later when they get older, really appreciate the service
that our own family members did, kind of got me thinking, you know,
with the advent of technology today we should be doing this nationwide.
And today if we had a nickel for every time we met someone who said,
"Geez, you know, I wish I had sat down with my grandfather
or grandmother or father or mother before they passed away,"
I think we'd all be very rich people.
But I also want to thank my colleagues in Congress
for the support that they've given to the project.
This was probably the fastest piece of legislation drafted,
reported out of committee, sent through the House and the Senate,
and signed into law than any other legislation.
I know Zach Wamp was very instrumental in helping
that in the House, and Senator Lugar in the Senate,
and they've been doing tremendous jobs creating models
of best practices on how to unveil this project
in their respective states of Indiana and Tennessee,
and I thank you guys for being here and participating.
But of course we've assembled a great Five-Star Advisory Council,
too, and we have two of the generals
who were already recognized here today with us
who have done tremendous work in putting together the parameters
of the project and getting the word out.
And we owe you and all of our veterans a debt of gratitude
that can never be repaid.
But my most fun, every year, with this project is working
with this alternative high school back in La Crosse,
my hometown of western Wisconsin.
These are at-risk kids, and they have adopted this project
where they go out and interview a slew of veterans
in our community every year.
And I talk to them about why they're interested in doing that,
and they say, "You know, we hate history.
We don't like reading it in the books,
and it's just not real or alive for us.
But, you know, getting involved with this project,
doing the research before we interview the veterans,
and then listening to them tell their story," they say,
"it really comes to life for us."
And I was talking to this one young man who was on the verge
of dropping out, and he got so caught up in this project he wanted
to see it through and get his high school diploma.
And he said, "You know, I felt
that in my own small way I was doing a part
to preserve an important part of American history."
And I thought, "Man, that's what this is all about."
That's what this project is about; that's what Ken's been doing
with his documentaries, just bringing history alive
and making this relevant to our own lives.
And my barber for 18 years, as a kid growing up,
about every other week I'd be in his barber chair and we'd talk
about everything from hunting to fishing to sports and what I'm doing
in school, and never once did he mention
that he served in the Second World War.
He went in on the D-Day invasion;
a couple of months later he was captured and he was a POW
for eight months in a German concentration camp.
Not one word the entire time I was sitting in his barber chair.
And it wasn't until this alternative high school went out and grabbed him
and some of the other veterans; when I sat there and listened
for the very first time to his account of his service
and sacrifice for our nation.   And there are people like that
around us everyday we don't even know about.
Now, hopefully with Ken Burns' endorsement, PBS's support,
what's happening this Fall, that that word will be easier to get out.
You know, the VFWs, American Legion, do their best, AARP --
I thank Dr. Erik Olsen for AARP's support throughout the years
and his presence here today.
But that's what it really is going to take,
is just getting this message out over and over and over again
so people know that it's there, that it's simple to do,
and that it's important to preserve this important part
of American history.
I also want to quickly mention my wife Tawny,
who's a court reporter for a judge back home.
And we were talking about the people at the Library of Congress,
how overwhelmed they were, and how important it was not only
for the video archive, but trying to get a written transcript
for a lot of those videotapes.
So she had the idea of eliciting the National Court Reporters Association
and court reporters from across the country
who are today volunteering their time to transcribe these tapes
so we have a better chance of indexing this record
and have a written record, too, which is going to be very important
for future researchers and students many years from now.
This is an exciting day.
It's tough to follow an act like Ken Burns,
but all we can say is thank you, thank you, thank you over
and over again, not only for your support for this project
but what you have meant to our nation and preserving our history
and making it come to life for us.
So thank you very much, and thank you Dr. Billington.
[ applause ]
Dr. James Billington: I think few people are more respected
in our country for their grasp of foreign affairs,
for their persuasiveness and the quiet power of argument
and long-term thinking about America and the world,
and Senator Lugar is himself a veteran.
And I already mentioned this remarkable way
in which he mobilized not only his staff but his state
for interviews of this kind.
Some people say we're a "hurry up" country,
but anybody who can stop the Indianapolis Speedway for a moment
to focus on this project has done some amazing things.
Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Richard Lugar.
[ applause ]
Senator Richard Lugar: Well, Jim, the reason they were willing
to accept this at the Speedway is you were there,
the Library of Congress was there,
and it was Armed Services Day before the second day of qualification.
And before, I had the privilege of swearing
into the services 10 young people in each of the services,
each year before 200,000 people, to revere our country
and the service of those young people.
But what we were there to talk about that day, we are here today to talk
about and to see with Ken Burns and those
who are supporting him, a remarkable endeavor.
When Ron Kind brought this legislation to the fore,
people in Indiana were excited, and so very rapidly television stations
in Indianapolis asked if I would interview veterans
for Indianapolis television and the World War Memorial.
And I was honored to do that.
But I remember that this is not an easy process, when you have a story
to tell and someone who has a lot to say, to draw that with the glare
of the camera and the thought that all
of this is being recorded for posterity.
So it took some of these situations a while to get underway.
But I remember vividly a gentleman --
and I've written notes about our conversation, John Bullock
[ spelled phonetically ]   , who I suppose as many did enlisted
in the armed services really before the time that he was eligible
to serve; he may have fibbed a bit about his age --
and after a very short amount of training, went to Europe
and was involved in the D-Day invasion.
Now, the thing that I remember vividly
about that particular interview was that he was prepared to go
with me almost day by day as they advanced through France,
and to describe the fields, what the fields had in them;
about how far they went each day.   Finally they found a village,
but unfortunately it was a contested situation.
And they found that there were Germans in the streets,
and that they were hiding in the attic and attempting to persist
in their situation and trying to decide whether to effect escape
or hunker down for a while and hope they would not be seen.
In due course, for the benefit at least of this story,
he was not captured, and lived for another day to proceed onward.
But it was a vivid example, as Ken Burns has said,
of what life was like, but how remarkable young Americans were
in adapting to that situation and using the ingenuity that they had;
their sense of loyalty to each other.
Tremendously moving.
Five years ago, Jim Billington asked me to come to this very podium
in this room to announce that we had 500 interviews.
This was in 2002, and that was a capstone event for our state,
well heralded in the press.
Let me just say that one of the things
that captivated our attention was this intergenerational possibility,
and that is grandfathers being interviewed by grandsons
or granddaughters, frequently.
It was the first time the veterans had opened
up frequently, and it was beautiful.
So we had a contest among high schools in our state,
so that in fact young people
in the schools would initiate these interviews; Croppersville
[ spelled phonetically ]   High School was the winner.
And I remember going to the gymnasium
of Croppersville High School, where the entire turnout
of the student body honored all of those who had conducted interviews
for the Veterans History Project.
It was a beautiful experience, but precisely the sort of thing
that you have envisioned and are talking about here today.
We're pleased to celebrate 7,300 interviews now
from our state of Indiana.
Emmy Huffman from Indianapolis, one of our staff members,
is here today because she has been so instrumental, year by year,
in orchestrating 237 partnering organizations in our state
who are even to this day conducting these interviews.
And the promise that we make to each one,
and which could only be fulfilled through the genius of the Library
of Congress, is that through digitalization or all the means
that you have to preserve this, that successive generations on
and on will be able to enjoy and revere these stories.
It's one of the most exciting concepts that I've been a part of,
and it's an honor to be here today at the beginning of this film
that likewise is another milestone of this great project.
Thank you so very much.   [ applause ]
Dr. James Billington: One
of the most inspiring efforts surrounding this project is
when a community gets involved as well as a whole state,
as Senator Lugar has just inspiringly reminded us.
But to record their stories -- and this happened in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, relatively early in the program, when a local TV station
and others in the community sponsored such a program.
It was the first program that took us into the veterans hospital
as a venue for conducting a session in this project.
And this was the idea, and I was privileged to be there,
but it was marvelous to see how a community came together
under the leadership of Congressman Zach Wamp,
who coordinated the effort.
We're grateful that he's with us today
and can tell us about his experience.
He's also a ranking member of the committee
that oversees whether the Library of Congress will continue from year
to year, so it's a double pleasure to welcome Congressman Wamp.
[ applause ]
Congressman Zach Wamp: Thank you, Dr. Billington.
Thank you, Dr. Billington.   It's almost lunchtime.
And I'm a southern Baptist, so I will not be long;
I understand the important things come first.
We're also at the point in the program where just
about everything has been said.
But not everyone has said it, so I'm still on my feet.
I couldn't help but think while Ken Burns was speaking
that I just hope there are not Ken Burns-type characters
out there plotting to run against me, because I really love my job.
[ laughter ]
What a brilliant, brilliant human being.
And I just want to quickly personalize this.
We did have a very successful Veterans History Project,
and I thank everyone who had anything to do with it
from its very inception until today.   And it goes on, and is so important.
But I just want to tell you a quick story about a guy named Fred Pruitt
[ spelled phonetically ]
. When I was growing up in East Ridge, Tennessee,
right outside of Chattanooga, my two brothers and I worked
in the concession stand at the town hall all the time
because my dad volunteered to do all that.
And a little man, a small, quiet man maybe six years my father's senior
worked in there with us all the time, Fred Pruitt.
And I knew him growing up all the time,
and he was just the community guy that got everything done,
was always there to help everybody.
I didn't know that much about him, but I knew his family,
knew his kids; he was always there.
Later on it didn't surprise me to find out he had been elected mayor
of the city of East Ridge because he was the public servant;
the quiet, decent, honorable guy.
Veterans History Project came along, and I thought it was so important.
And we launched it in a powerful way and took hundreds
and hundreds of interviews.
And all of a sudden there was Fred Pruitt in this interview;
in this compelling, courageous story of his service and the valor
and the sacrifice that he made.
And then when I got together with his family to hear
and to literally witness them weep as they said this was the first
and only time, as we've heard over and over again,
that he ever shared any of this; it was bottled up inside of him.
Let me just close the loop by saying two years ago I was honored
to speak at his funeral.
The most compelling, the most emotional part of his funeral was
when we talked about him finally sharing this extraordinary
experience in his life that he intentionally buried away
and never was willing to share.
And had we not engaged in the Veterans History Project and brought
that out of him -- and it is upstairs, archived here forever
and ever for our great nation --
I would not have known that about Fred Pruitt,
nor would his own family.
And this quiet, dedicated, all-American man
so exemplifies the sacrifice of the greatest generation.
So Ken Burns, yet again you're doing the Lord's work,
and this is so important for the future of this great nation
and the entire free world, and our way of life as we know it.
Thank you.   [ applause ]
Dr. James Billington: Before I introduce the last speaker,
I'd like to just on behalf of all of us here thank Bob Patrick
who I've stolen the microphone from, but who really does the work
and has made this project -- and he and his very good staff,
and of course the wonderful work of the American Folklife Center
under whose imaginative leadership with Peggy Bulger --
this whole thing function, so I'd like to thank Peggy,
but ask Bob particularly to stand up and take a bow,
because he does deserve it.   [ applause ]
Our final speaker, Dr. Erik Olsen, is the President of AARP.
During the early years of the Veterans History Project,
one organization came forward
and made a major commitment towards its mission early
in the game, and this was AARP.
Through their generosity and the energy of its membership,
the Veterans History Project has been able to move forward
in its effort to interview veterans.
They are not the only, but they were certainly one of the pioneers
and one of the first to step in,
and they've been consistent friends of this.
So it's a pleasure, again concluding anything I would say,
to thank once again this marvelous team from WETA, from the Corporation
of Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting System;
you've all been wonderful to work with,
and of course Ken and his team.
But let me turn the microphone over for a final word
to a stalwart supporter from the private sector of this project
from the beginning and its current President, Dr. Erik Olsen.
[ applause ]
Dr. Erik Olsen: Clearly one of the best things
that AARP has ever done was get involved in this project.
I think we kickstarted it with $3 million, as I recall the number,
and we're very, very proud of that.
But even more so, it established our relationship with the Library;
I have the honor of serving on the James Madison Council.
We've just gotten closer to the whole Library situation here.
But you know, we learn things, too, over time,
and our latest public education effort is to try to demonstrate
to the American people how our healthcare system is becoming
increasingly, should I say, dysfunctional.
Now, I hate to use the word "plagiarize" here
in the hallowed walls of this building,
but should we say borrow --
we borrowed this idea of a project of oral history.
We are trying to gather one million voices
of problems people have had navigating
and using the health care system.
So thank you for giving us that idea,
and that's our current project we're engaged in.
We appreciate it.
I just have to say thank -- oh, and by --
for Ken and PBS, our chapters around the country are starting
to get interest, and we're starting to, should I say the word,
gin up interest in our chapters
around the country so they can be involved.
We appreciate that.
The other thing Ken told me is -- I was a little young for World War II,
but I was a boy in school.
And I hadn't thought that I was part of the story, but I am.
I remember those stamps that we had to buy, 10 cents
or one cent to pay for the war.
You know, I wish we were doing that now,
but now hopefully some young people will get
that idea of a shared sacrifice.
So, this continues, and Ken, we're honored to be involved in this
and we thank you very much.   [ applause ]
Bob Patrick: This concludes our remarks for the day.
I know there are members of the media present; we do have time
for some questions if any of them would have some.
We have a mic handy if you have a question.
There's a question over here.   Sean Runnum
[ spelled phonetically ]
: I'm Sean Runnum with the Mobile Press Register.
There's been some allusion to this, but could someone just spell
out the exact elements of this outreach program,
and are any of the parties receiving compensation,
and will the public have full access to this material that's collected?
Bob Patrick: The material has been put into a booklet form
that has been put together by the people
at WETA and Public Broadcasting.
It contains all the information about how to conduct an interview,
as Ken alluded to; questions to ask, how to set up an interview,
how to do a little research
on veterans during World War II, how to find a veteran.
We always say it's not hard to find a veteran;
it's finding someone to interview them.
This is available through our Web site, www.loc.gov/vets,
where you can download this booklet,
you can download the materials I'm talking about
and actually conduct an interview.   Does that answer your question?
Sean Runnum: Is anyone receiving compensation
through this arrangement?
Bob Patrick: No, there is not, this is --
Sean Runnum: And will the public have -- Bob Patrick: --
a voluntary effort; it always has been a voluntary effort.
Sean Runnum: Will the public have full access to the information?
Bob Patrick: Through our Web site you can go in and see the archive.
We have digitized about 4,000 of our collections right now.
And that is increasing as we go along,
so the public has full access either to visit here at the Reading Room
of the American Folklife Center, or as I said through our Web site.
Any other questions?   Karen Everhart
[ spelled phonetically ]
: Hi, I'm Karen Everhart from Current newspaper
[ spelled phonetically ]
. And just to follow up a little bit on his question,
is the practical effect of this partnership to expand the promotion
of the project and awareness of it,
and how does it affect the outreach project that PBS itself developed?
Is it making it available in more schools, or --
if you could just explain a little bit more the practical effect
of what this partnership actually means.
Bob Patrick: This partnership means two things; number one,
making people aware of the documentary
that is being broadcast on PBS.
But as PBS -- and someone maybe from PBS would like to speak to this
as well -- one thing PBS likes to do is do outreach as a part
of their documentaries, and doing something very concrete as a part
of the projects they've had in the past.
And they see this, I think,
as something that can be done very concrete
when someone says, "Well, what can I do?"
Well, here's what you can do.
You can take our information, conduct an interview and submit it
to the Library of Congress where it can be preserved.
I don't know if anyone would like to respond to that.
Paula Kerger: You actually said it very well.
But I think this gives us a connection for all
of the oral history projects that are going on around the country,
and there are literally hundreds of them.
The one I cited in Arkansas is a particularly robust one,
and in fact they are taking the oral histories that they're creating
and they're doing two things; one is they're giving a DVD
of the oral history to the family.
And actually, some of the oral histories --
they've been working on this project now for two years,
and some of the people they've interviewed have now passed.
And the other part of their project is that in addition to having all
of their oral histories as part of the state record,
they're taking some and they're putting them together
into a documentary film.
So I think that what you see here is yet another contact point for all
of these oral history projects that are going on around the country.
And we'll be happy to give you some more information, Karen,
if you want, about the outreach part of this,
because it really is quite fascinating;
each one is being crafted at a very local level, very differently
from one another, all based on the communities
and how the station feels itself connected to their community.
Karen Everhart: Sorry, I just wanted to follow up.
Given that the University of Texas has an oral history project related
to Hispanic-American veterans' experience,
and they have been critical of the film and campaigned
to have inclusion of Hispanic veterans in the series,
are they participating in this project?
Is there any effort to try to bring them in?
Bob Patrick: We have reached
out across the country during our six years
to other oral history projects and asked them to partner with us.
Some have elected to do that, some have elected not to.
Some have shared the recordings that they have made and filled
out some forms that we need to be filled out
and actually sent us copies to be archived here.
In some cases they have provided us with information we make public
when people are looking for specific types of interviews like Hispanics,
Japanese-American, other types of interviews;
make people aware of those collections.
The one you're speaking of is not what we would call a partner
of the Veterans History Project, but again, we do refer people to them.
Does that answer your question?
Karen Everhart: I was just wondering if you were making an extra effort
to bring them in to this.
Bob Patrick: We've had numerous discussions with Dr. Rodriguez
in the past; in fact, she has participated in some
of our programs here at the Library.
We had a program in 2004 here on the Mall
where we did a panel on Hispanic veterans.
We see this as an opportunity with the Veterans History Project
to expand not just the numbers that we have,
but the diversity in our project.
I think we have a pretty good collection in terms
of having some diversity with it, but again, we more and more want
to expand it as much as we can.   Any other questions?
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate you coming here today.
I look forward to working and seeing each of you again in the future.
[ applause ]   [ end of transcript ]