>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Karen Lloyd: Good afternoon.
I'm Karen Lloyd, Director of
the Veterans History Project.
And it is my pleasure to welcome
you to the Library of Congress
and our behind the
mic panel discussion
to examine the interviewer's
role
and experience with
oral history.
Oral history is a principal
conduit for folklore.
It is through oral history
that we're able to learn
about the life experiences and
perspectives of individuals
who might not otherwise
appear in historical records.
Recorded interviews provide
uniqueness to the qualities
of human voice that is its
expression like inflections,
hesitation, dialect
and emotional range.
The content of these
interviews also provide a rich
human interaction.
As I watch and listen to
the stories in our archive,
as well as meet the veterans and
their loved ones face-to-face,
I am more and more grateful
for our veterans'
service and sacrifice.
I am thankful that
Congress understood
that oral history
aspect of folklore
when it established the Veterans
History Project in year 2000.
Congress established
VHP as a project
within the American Folklife
Center of the Library
of Congress, because it was seen
as an appropriate repository
to collect, preserve,
and make available
to the public an archive
of oral histories.
In two days, we will celebrate
our 17th anniversary and I am
so proud to report that
we currently hold more
than 104,000 collections
of selfless service
of our brave men and women
who served in the US military
from World War I through
the current conflicts.
It would have been
impossible for our staff
to archive this much history
without the direct involvement
of organizations like Witness to
War, Vietnam War Commemoration,
Members of Congress
and volunteers
from across the country,
who interviewed veterans
in their lives and
in their communities.
In addition to the interviews,
they also donate other
historic materials
such as original photographs,
letters, diaries, journals,
two-dimensional artwork and
official military documents,
at a rate of about
a hundred per week.
The Veterans History
Project engages veterans
from every branch of
service and their loved ones
and our content is used
by researchers, educators,
students, authors, filmmakers,
and the general public.
We are deeply honored to
host this panel where we get
to take a peek behind
the curtain
of the interviewer experience.
It is now my pleasure
to introduce
to you our distinguished panel.
I'd like to start with Joe
Galloway, a native Texan.
Joe joined the United
Press International
as a reporter in 1961.
During his 22 years with UPI,
Joe served in nearly
a dozen news bureaus
in the American Midwest
and also Asia.
Joe began a 16-month
tour of Vietnam
as a war correspondent
beginning in April 1965,
shortly after the first
American combat troops arrived
in Vietnam.
He did three other tours in
Vietnam, one in 1971, one in '73
and his last in 1975
covering the fall of Saigon.
Joe spent 20 years as a senior
editor and senior writer
for the US News &
World Report magazine
and just recently retired as a
senior military correspondent
for Knight Ridder newspapers.
Joe served as special consultant
to General Colin Powell
at the State Department.
That had been amazing and
co-authored several books.
He is most often
recognized as the co-author
of the national bestselling
book, "We Were Soldiers Once...
and Young" with General
Hal Moore.
The book was later turned
into a feature film in 2002,
starring Mel Gibson
as General Moore.
More recently, Joe has been
portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones
in a film "Shock and Awe", a
reflection of his reputation
for journalistic integrity.
He has received numerous
awards for his writing,
but I think he would tell you,
his most significant
recognition came in 1998,
when the army awarded
him a bronze star
for rescuing a wounded soldier
under fire in November 1965.
This was the only such medal
for valor awarded to a civilian
by the army for actions
undertaken during the
Vietnam War.
Next, we have Emily Carley with
the Witness to War Foundation.
Thank you Emily, a nonprofit
501c3 founded in 2001
and dedicated to
capturing the stories
of individual combat
veterans, honoring them
and educating future generations
about the price of freedom
and extraordinary valor
for our forbearers.
The Witness to War Foundation
is dedicated to understanding
as much as possible, what
it was like to be there.
Emily is an Atlanta native and a
2006 graduate of the University
of Tennessee with a
BA/BS in Marketing.
Her grandfather was a World
War II and Korean War veteran
and is featured on the
Witness to War website.
He is Tank Commander Andrew
Carpenter, in case you're going
to check it out later.
Emily originally
assisted with interviewing
and website content
selection prior to moving
into the director position.
Emily has been working with
the foundation since 2006,
where today she is responsible
for the day-to-day running
of the Foundation including
partnership and media contacts
and website management.
Next to Emily is Guha
Shankar, a folklife specialist
at the American Folklife Center.
Guha is involved in a range
of public outreach programs
including the Civil Rights
Project, a national
initiative to conduct surveys
of existing oral history
collections with relevance
to the Civil Rights Movements
and to record new interviews
with people who participated
in the movement.
The recollections
of interviewees cover a
wide variety of topics
about the freedom struggle
such as the Influence
of Organized Labor,
Nonviolence and Self Defense,
and the Importance of Faith,
Music, Family and Friendships,
and that last piece as a veteran
really resonates with me.
Like many of our veterans,
the individuals involved
in Civil Rights Movement
fought bravely
for what they believed in.
They often experienced
intense traumatic events
that have ultimately
defined their life.
Their actions and moments
in time are meaningful,
not just to the individuals,
but also for larger history.
Events discussed in these
interviews include the murder
of 14-year-old Emmett Till in
1955, the Freedom Rights in '61,
the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom in '63,
the Selma to Montgomery
Rights March in '65.
The 130 plus interviews
are a permanent part
of the recently opened
national museum.
Guha earned his PhD in 2003 from
the Department of Anthropology,
University of Texas Austin
with the concentration
in folklore and public culture.
Prior to undertaking
his graduate studies,
he was a media production
specialist
and documentary film producer at
the Center for Folklife Programs
at the Smithsonian Institution's
Center for Folklife
and Cultural Heritage.
As an army colonel,
I am thrilled
to welcome our next panel
member and my compatriot, Mark--
Colonel Mark Franklin.
Through Colonel Franklin
served 30 years of service,
he held a variety of positions,
starting as a weapons
platoon leader and culminating
as a political military adviser
as the Okinawa area coordinator
and senior country
director in the China,
Asia and Pacific Securities
Office under Secretary
of Defense for policy,
where he was responsible
for developing military
to military relationship
with China.
Mark currently serves as the
chief history and legacy branch
for the Vietnam War
Commemoration.
Vietnam War Commemoration
was created in 2008 by act
of Congress and will last
until Veterans Day 2025.
The mission of the commemoration
is to assist our nation
in thanking and honoring Vietnam
veterans, their families,
the fallen, those who are
held prisoner of war and those
that are still unaccounted for.
In support of that
mission, the history
and legacy branch strives to
provide the American public
with a clear understanding and
appreciation of the service,
sacrifice of our veterans
and ensure the legacy
of their service endures
for future generations.
Lastly, our moderator,
thank you Andrew.
Last but not least,
is Dr. Andrew Ringlee,
Dr. Ringlee is a historian for
the Vietnam War Commemoration.
He received his PhD in
History from the University
of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 2016.
He works on the Vietnam War
Commemorations Oral History
Project, conducting
interviews in Washington,
DC and several other cities.
Andrew received numerous
academic awards including a
Fulbright-Hays to conduct
dissertation research
in Russia in 2013.
I will now turn the
microphone over to Andrew
who will explain the
format of today's panel.
Thank you, Andrew.
>> Andrew Ringlee: I would
like to thank Karen Lloyd
for that warm introduction
and for hosting us here
and I also want to thank
Kerry Ward for her help
in bringing this
panel into being.
First of all, I will-- I answer
or ask the panelists several
questions, both panels,
general questions the entire
panel and a couple specific
to individuals on the panel.
Then afterwards, I would
like to open the discussion
to the audience and I would
encourage you to ask questions
for panelist either
for the entire panel
or for individuals on the panel.
Oral history is important for
its critical ability to fill
in the gaps in our historical
records, enables us to capture
and preserve accounts that
we would otherwise lose,
be they subaltern voices or even
people who are very important
who choose not to commit their
thoughts to written prose.
In introduction question for
everyone on these panelists,
can you describe a moment when
you realize in an interview
that what the interviewee
was saying had changed your
understanding of an
historical event or process?
And perhaps we can
start with Guha.
>> Guha Shankar: Thanks.
I think I go back to one of
the very first interviews
that I was a part of
here at the Library.
I've done several on my own.
But I was acting as a sound
recorder for an interview
that we did during the opening
of the World War II
Memorial here in the mall
and memory escapes me.
It was at least-- it
was a long time ago.
It was about at least 10
years ago if I'm not mistaken.
And one of the people whom
we were interviewing was this
elderly gentleman who
had been brought here
by his congressman
from Michigan.
And at the course of the
interview, I want to cut
to the point, he had never, as
I found out, as I was talking
to his two adult daughters,
they said, "He has never talked
about his war experiences
to us ever."
And so for them it was a
moment to listen and understand
from their father's own words
what his experiences were.
And at the course of the
interview, he starts talking
about essentially being
transported at the end
of the war having been
shot down, 19-year-old,
sent across the border
and into Germany,
somewhere in the
Polish border, I think.
And he says at that moment, and
this is a capstone argument,
he says, "I didn't realize until
they told me where we were going
to be barracked, that it was the
birthplace of my grandparents.
And yes, I heard the, ahh.
[laughter] I did that.
The interviewer did
that and behind me,
who's two grown daughters
did that.
And the trauma that he
is talking about perhaps
of not the reason he just kept
quiet for all those years.
And he said, "I never told
anybody in my unit where I was
or who my grandparents were."
So that kind of erasure of his
own family history in the middle
of this trauma, which is already
for a 19-year-old being
transported 40 men
to a boxed car across
enemy lines,
had to be doubly and triply so.
And that adds to a
dimension of understanding,
which I think going
back to your point,
which you just would not
get just reading the text
of that account alone.
And to hear from his own
voice and then the other shock
of that is amplified by the fact
that his two daughters
coming towards the end
of their father's life who
is an elderly man after all,
close to his 80s, that is also
that kind of intensification
of what happens when you're
listening to an oral history.
That profoundly changed
my perception
of what I thought I knew about
the war, which is obviously,
you know, a lot of John
Wayne stuff going on.
>> Emily Carley: So my answer is
going to be a little bit broader
because my evolution
into interviewing was a little
bit different probably than some
of the other people
on the panel.
I actually started out doing
World War II interviews
for the Witness to
War Foundation.
When I started with the group,
that was our main focus,
because we were trying
to capture
as many World War II interviews
as we could while these
veterans were still with us
and are still with us.
And in our more recent years,
our focus has shifted
towards the Vietnam veteran,
which I personally did not have
a lot of experience with just
by the nature of the
work I was doing.
And it had always been
kind of my understanding
that Vietnam veterans may not be
incredibly comfortable talking
about their experiences.
Obviously, the coming
home process
for them was a little
bit different.
And they-- I've always had
the impression that maybe not
to ask the questions,
maybe not to try to talk
about the Vietnam War.
So when we started to get
into these interviews,
it was a little bit of a
different arena for me.
And what I realize was
that it wasn't so much
that they didn't want
to talk about it,
it was that we weren't
asking them.
We weren't asking them
to share these stories.
We were not opening up
this outlet for them.
And so it was a unique
experience for me
to see these interviews
starting to come out,
see these gentlemen starting to
open up about their experiences
and the cathartic
process for them.
One in particular that stands
out to me was a gentleman
that I did an interview with in
a small town outside of Atlanta.
And I can't even remember
how we came together anymore.
But it was clear to me that
he had not shared his story
very much.
I think I just happened to
come along at the right time.
He actually was a very soft
spoken southern gentleman
who kind of, I feel like
was looking for an outlet
to finally share
these experiences.
And so when we sat down,
I didn't know a lot
about what he was going
to share, but it turned
out to be one of
the most profound
and poignant interviews
I've ever done.
He sits down and he
starts talking about being
in a mountain yard
village in Vietnam
as it was overrun
by the Vietcong.
And his severe wounds and
basically sitting in a tunnel
with a grenade in his
hand deciding if he wanted
to be captured or if he
wanted to pull the pin
on the grenade himself.
And I'm sitting there as
he's telling this just in awe
because these were
the types of stories
that I had not heard before.
I didn't know much about Vietnam
and here he was sharing it
with me as an interviewer,
who he had just met.
And I think that's what so
vastly important for us is
that we're the keepers of
these memories for them
that we show our interest in
what they're talking about.
We're asking the right questions
and that we can be there
for them to share the experience
and that to me was kind
of this turning point in
switching from World War II
to Vietnam that I reflect
back on that interview often
and I share it often because
I think he was looking
for an outlet and I
was more than thrill
to provide that for him.
>> Joseph Galloway: I'm not
sure I can put my finger
on an aha moment in the 300
plus interviews I've done
over the last four years
with the Vietnam veterans.
But what I would say is
that I learned something new
about that war from every single
veteran that I interviewed.
They opened up to me
perhaps in a special way
if for no other reason than
I've been there where they were
for four tours in Vietnam
as a war correspondent.
And never written books
and worked as a journalist
for 55 years and built
almost unprecedented level
of trust among military people.
I learned as a young reporter
that the military is a very
small tightly contained world,
especially professional
military officers.
And the communication among them
is swift and if you deal fairly
with one, all of them hear
about it and controversially
if you screw one of them,
you've done them all
and you will never
get cooperation.
You will never set foot
on a military base again,
with except as a
hostile so identified.
So I sit down and talk to
them and I find they open
up very easily and tell stories
they've told no one else.
>> Retired Col. Mar R. Franklin:
You know, you can get a sense
of what combat is like
by watching it on TV,
seeing Hollywood portrayals,
even reading really,
really good books by
very, very good authors.
But it's when you hear it
from the veterans on mouth
that it really kind of brings it
home and our very, very first--
in fact, Joe's very, very first
interview was Gen. Tom Hill,
San Antonio.
And I thought I knew
something about war and combat.
I've been fortunate with a
few close calls in Pakistan,
I've never really had a
shot fired at me in anger,
but I thought I knew
something about it
until I heard Tom Hill
explained in a firefight
when he was platoon
leader having one
of his young soldiers
die on his lips
as he was giving him
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Now that really brings it home.
And I think, for me, that
was probably and was a very,
very first interview
and I thought, wow,
we are really in
for quite a ride.
So I think the perspectives
that you get
from combat veterans really
is what brings it home
and that is probably the first
profound effect it had for me.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Emily, as
an interviewer, you often have
to listen between the lines.
How do you think an
interviewee's responses shape
your subsequent questions?
Do they and what
ways, like that?
>> Emily Carley: Absolutely.
Our questions are
vitally important
to the content of the interview.
And I've seen this across
a spectrum by starting
out with interviewing
Word War II veterans
and then now interviewing
people coming back from Iraq
and Afghanistan and obviously,
the storytelling
styles are different,
the memories are
fresher or more distant.
And so it's imperative that as
an interviewer, you do know what
to look for and not stick
to a set list of questions.
We have a list of questions that
we kind of use for reference
but as we're going
through an interview,
we're always jotting down notes.
Things to come back to,
it's important for us not
to interrupt an interview
because we don't want
to get them off track from a
story that they're telling.
But it's always picking
up on those little nuggets
of information, you know, maybe
a village that they pass through
or something that they saw
as they're describing
a larger story
and being able to
come back to that.
Because sometimes those
turn into fantastic stories,
fantastic insights, things
that we can draw back
on in other parts
of the interview.
And then also if
you have somebody
who isn't quite comfortable
telling their story,
it's incredibly important
that you can help guide them.
So help draw up things that
they might not remember
or that they might not be
thinking about at the time.
So if you have somebody
that's more reluctant,
you can use those things
that you pick up on
to help further them
in their stories
and develop those
memories for videotape.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Mark,
as a veteran yourself,
you have the ability to
establish a special rapport
with veterans when they're
conducting oral history
interviews, what are the--
both the opportunities and the
challenges that your status
as a former professional
soldier present
when you're interviewing
a veteran?
>> Mark Franklin: Yeah.
I think that's true.
Regardless of the
service that you serve in,
all military members share
one common experience,
that would be their
initial entry training,
which is its own form
of shock and awe.
And then of course understanding
military chain of command
and some of the vernacular,
but then when you get
down of the separate
services and for me being army
when you talk to the guys that
serve on the ground both marines
and army, you also share
a common experience
and so they do tend to take
some things for granted.
So when you take-- talk about
challenges, one of the things
that we-- the first thing we
tell a veteran when we sit
down is we explain, you know,
you and I understand
a certain language.
We use certain acronyms
and terms and--
but remember your audience.
The audience may not
remember or not know what
that acronym or term is.
So when you see it or use it,
try to remember to spell it out
or explain it and if you don't,
we'll try to remind
you to do so.
So, they get it right away.
And there's this
understanding that, yeah,
we speak the same language, not
everybody may understand it.
In terms of a combat
veteran, nobody--
just like I said
earlier where I don't--
you really can't understand
combat unless you've
experienced it.
A combat veteran can't
really explain it
to someone who's
never been there.
They get the sense that
maybe they don't understand
and we're finding now finally
these Vietnam veterans are
willing to open up
in a kind of express,
some of those experiences,
but the guy they really open
up to is someone
who's been there
and that's the gentleman
on my right.
So that would be
probably be a good segue
to your next question.
>> Andrew Ringlee:
That's an excellent segue
to the next question.
Joe, as a reporter who worked
in Vietnam and then published
about Vietnam, many of your
interview subjects know
who you are.
Some of them have even come
down and sat for the interview
because they know you're going
to be there and they have
that opportunity to meet you.
How do you think that your--
or the interviewee's knowledge
of you, your biography,
how do you think it
affects the interview?
>> Joseph Galloway: I don't
certainly don't think it gets
on the way.
I think they open up
to me far more readily
because they know I know
where of they speak.
I've stood there
while they were dying
and bleeding all around me.
I've carried the wounded,
I've carried the dead.
I've carried them water and
ammunition and on occasion,
un-slung my rifle and put
it to use because otherwise,
maybe we were all
going to die there.
It's absolutely true you cannot
explain combat thoroughly
to someone who has never seen
or more importantly
heard and smelled it.
Even, you know, even a skilled
writer can't put down words
on paper to explain what 2000
dead bodies in a circle less
than 200 meters around
who have been rotting
in the hot tropical
sun for three days,
what that smell is like.
I can't explain it to you,
but I can never get it
out of my nose and
out of my mind.
They're just plain going
to open up and talk to me
because they know I
understand where of they speak.
And as a kid, my father and
six of his brothers and four
of my mother's brothers all
wear the uniform in World War II
and when we were little
kids, when they came home,
we wanted war stories
and we've pestered them.
And all we got from them were
the lighthearted stories,
the jokes, the funny stuff,
never what we really
we're looking for.
And I never heard that from any
of these uncles that I loved
and respected until
I came home on leave
from my first tour in Vietnam.
And one of my favorite uncles,
who was a bomber and pilot
in the Pacific, and I noticed
that at family reunions,
he couldn't take the crowd.
He would disappear out the back
door and walk out in the woods
and just kind of wander around.
And when I came home on leave,
I found that I had the same
disposal toward no crowds
at all.
And I wandered out behind
him and we stood out there
in the woods and he
told me his stories.
He could share now, he
couldn't share before.
So it's both of blessing
and a curse.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Guha,
your experience doing interviews
is unique because many--
the three of us or four of us
actually, particularly worked
with veterans and we're
asking them questions
about their military service.
Many of your subjects while they
served in war, they then went
on to do also-- perform also
sort of great accomplishments.
And how does the trauma and the
experience of serving in a war
and going through the military
experience then inform their
later actions in the way they
think about those actions?
>> Guha Shankar: Right.
And I suppose I should this as
a specific regard to the fact
that many of the
people that we interview
for the Civil Rights History
Project are African-Americans
and not just African-Americans.
But going back to your question,
the way in which the war,
the experiences
of war influenced how
they then perform later
in civilian life was that it
brought home to them I think
in a very real and
visceral way the idea
of two separate nations
in this country.
And the trauma I think
that they experienced
and you can hear
these, it's replete
in the accounts going back to
World War I, if anybody who was
in service who happened to be a
person of color, was that notion
of going abroad to fight for
freedom when you're denied very
of those-- many of those
same freedoms at home.
You know, there's World
War I veterans who talk
about coming off the
victory ships landing at port
and the white officer says,
whites to the left,
color to the right.
So on the frontlines, while you
were busy serving and fighting
for freedom and waving flags
and taking the notions American
democracy and American project
into Europe and to other
theaters, you're plunged back
into a situation which you are
again a second class citizen.
And you know, men and women,
and men especially who served
on the frontlines bravely
are again relegated
to the status of
boy, back at home.
And that threat carries
itself through, I think,
any one of interviews in either
the major theaters of war,
the Korean War and
the Vietnam War
if you haven't read it
already and I'm not sure,
Joe's accounts deal with those,
but certainly the most
traumatic experiences
of African-American soldiers
in Vietnam can be found
in Wallace Terry's
amazing oral histories
with 20 African-American
veterans called Bloods.
I highly recommend it.
It changed my experiences
of my--
it amplified my understanding
of what war must have been like.
And I'm not going to sit here
and pretend I know what war is
like just because I heard
somebody talk about it.
But you get that intensification
of experience as told
to them by those folks.
And again going back
to your question,
the way in which many people
who introduce Civil Rights
History Project who had served
in Korea, I would
say, who then became--
who came fully grown into
the civil rights era, again,
it intensified their notion
that there was an injustice
which was replete at all
levels of American society
and they needed to change it.
And that's where they
devoted much of their life to.
And many of them did
so in the sidelines
but several significant people,
several significant members
like James Forman
went on to work
with the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee,
led access in the
frontlines of the south.
And there's another
interesting connection.
I've only had heard the notion
of trauma and PTSD with regard
to veterans and then having
embarked this project five years
ago, the Civil Rights
History Project, the same set
of phrases, trauma,
shock, terror, alienation,
being out of place, PTSD, all
came up in the words of people
who had never served in
war but who had served
in the front lines, in the
danger zones of the US south
when they were taking
actions for civil rights
and freedom for the
black people.
>> Andrew Ringlee:
And it's actually--
you know, strange way I
think piggyback of this,
but when we talk about
oral history, we are often
by collecting stories we are
commemorating our subject lives
too and their contributions
that they've made to history.
And Mark, could you
talk a little bit
of how the oral history
project conducted
by the Vietnam War Commemoration
achieves the objectives
of the commemoration and how it
commemorates these historical
figures more properly?
>> Mark Franklin: Absolutely.
Congress gave us
five objectives.
When they authorized
Department of Defense
to begin this commemoration
project,
they gave us five objectives.
The very first one and it's the
one that we're all focused on,
is to thank and honor
the Vietnam veterans
and their families, as well as
those who are held as prisoners
of war, those who paid
the ultimate sacrifice
and whose names are on the wall
and those who are still waiting
to be accounted for, that
is our number one objective.
The mission of our branch
history and legacy is
to help the public better
understand that service
and sacrifice and ensure the
legacy that service endures
for future generations.
So by doing these
oral histories,
we are in fact achieving
that mission in support
of that first objective.
We hope to help the public
better understand what it meant
to serve in Vietnam as a
veteran from all services,
all racial backgrounds,
both enlisted and officers,
to get a wide range of
experiences of what it meant
to serve during that time.
And because of the Library
of Congress' Veterans
History Project
and sharing those oral
histories with them,
we want to share the legacy
of that service endures
for future generations.
So in that way, that's how we
are honoring those objectives.
>> Andrew Ringlee:
And then to piggyback
over that question further,
Emily, your organization,
Witness to War, host integrate
videos in pedagogical materials
for classroom use, can you
share some stories in ways
that you've done this, in
projects you've undertaken
or ways that you have
engaged the public
and particularly school
children or teachers
in sharing veterans'
testimonies in the classroom?
>> Emily Carley: OK.
Yes. One of our-- One part
of our three-part mission,
which is preserve, honor,
and educate is obviously
this educational component,
which we have not fully
developed up until now.
And it's always been
kind of in the back
of our minds how do we get this
content into the classroom,
because we feel that
it's so vitally important
to understanding
war and war history
as having these first-hand
accounts.
So, I have phenomenal
history teachers.
I learned a lot about
the different wars,
but I had no sense of
the soldier perspective,
the human aspect of what it was
like to be in war and obviously
to speak to Joe's point, I
can never fully understand
because I have not
been in combat myself.
But how do we get them
to understand better
what we're asking
when we send soldiers
into combat.
One of the things that
was very poignant for me
in this career was my
grandfather's interview.
As mentioned earlier,
he was a II war vet,
World War II tank commander
and then served in Korea
and actually, my mother was
born while he was overseas.
And as much as I knew about
his involvement in war,
I didn't know the
personal stories.
I didn't know what kind of
heavy combat he was involved in.
And until we did the
interview with him,
I didn't know what went
into being a veteran.
For me, it was him going to
VFW meeting and him marching
in parades and getting together
with those other veterans,
but not this first hand boots
on the ground, the sights,
the sounds, the smells of war.
And so when we did that
interview with him,
it opened my eyes to
this whole new idea
of collecting this
information from veterans
and I got more involved
in the Witness
to War Foundation at that point.
And I just think it's
so important for people
to better understand
what goes into combat,
to have these first-hand
accounts.
And so one of the things
that we're doing to get back
to the original question,
is launching educational
component to our website.
And so essentially what we
did was we took some interns,
some high school interns
this summer and have them go
through all of the content
on our site, over 5000 clips
from the nearly 2300
interviews that we've done.
And pull out vignettes
from these major battles,
Battle of the Bulge, Ia Drang
Valley, across World War II,
Vietnam and Korea and come
out what we called modules.
So five clips from
particular battles,
particular types of experiences.
So if you are a teacher in a
classroom and you're teaching
about the Battle of the Bulge,
trying to bring the dry pages
of history to life for students,
so they can come to the site
and you can see five clips
from guys who were there,
who felt the cold, who knew the
frightening experience of being
under artillery fire and trying
to bring that to life as much
as possible to create a
better sense of understanding.
So that's one of the things that
we're doing and hoping to launch
that actually in
the next few months,
but we're working
on that currently.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Guha,
during some of your interviews,
you undoubtedly know details
of your subjects' lives.
And when you know
information, when we know it
as an oral history,
when we know information
about our subject's
lives, how do we let
that information
shape the interview?
Are there any methodological
tricks
or procedures we should follow?
Should we let that
shape the interview
or should we just proceed
with the normal questions?
>> Guha Shankar: Yeah.
That's an excellent question.
A, we do have to know something
about the subject and we have
to know something about
topics that we're going
to be asking questions about
and we have to know something
about the interviewee
themselves,
simply because it's respect.
You have to understand
who they are
and how they are
situated historically
because that informs the
questions that you asked.
And perhaps the methodology
that I employ might be a little
different from oral historians
in that I'm not really all
that interested in the answers
that people have to my
questions, I'm interested
in the stories that my
questions elicit from them.
And the story shape further
stories and further questions.
So in point of fact
when, you know,
it's methodological principle
we say, well, you may have 10
to 15 questions in your packet,
if you go beyond question five
and just start asking your own
question seven, eight, nine,
and 10, then you really not
have a very good interview
because the point is to let the
interviewee shape the direction
of the interview as
much as possible.
And then the balancing act is to
say how do you rein them back in
and actually get to some of the
points that you want to cover
because I think Mark alluded
to earlier, you want something
on the historical record that
is in that person's voice.
It's not just mediated,
interpreted and analyzed
and filtered through
all of the knowledge
that you have purportedly
about that topic.
You want to let the fullness of
that person's experience be part
of the historical record.
And that really is the way
in which the interviewee
coauthors in that interview.
That's really the
guiding principle,
I would say if there
is such a thing.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Then three
final questions for the group.
What are or are there some lines
that the interviewer
should never cross?
>> Mark Franklin:
The first I would--
you know, we've interviewed
quite a few Vietnam veterans
and overwhelmingly, they
perform well and honorably.
Some made some mistakes
that they have talked about.
And the most important
thing you can do
as an interviewer is
not make judgments.
They are going to be very, very
honest and it is that candor
and honesty that you
want in the interview.
And so, they may say things that
may surprise you or shock you
and it's your job to
maintain your own objectivity
and not make judgments on
what they might tell you.
>> Andrew Ringlee:
Anything to add Joe?
OK. Do you?
>> Guha Shankar: Lines--
>> Andrew Ringlee: Lines
you should never cross.
>> Guha Shankar: If you know
something about the subject
and you know something about
the person you're interviewing
and there's a particular
traumatic event, you may want
to broach it with the greatest
of care and consideration
and not avoid bringing
up something
which traumatizes the person.
On the other hand, there has
been-- there are ample moments
and I think all of
us here would agree
that when somebody
broaches a topic
which you think is shocking,
but which they really want
to get out, you know, out
of their own consciousness
and into public view because
it's the first time they've told
it or it's the first time
that they've ever been able
to speak-- articulate it in
a way that's safe for them
and that's part of it is that
you have to at all times,
I think, try and ensure
that their safety,
and that's psychological
well-being and all of that,
is paramount in the way in which
you conduct the conversation
that you're having.
And that's just something which
comes up in a situational basis.
There's no template for it.
You can't write it
down in guidebooks
and you can't teach it.
You won't know it until
you encounter that moment
of where is that tipping point.
>> Emily Carley:
To build on that,
that's kind of how we
view things as well.
And we will broach subjects with
the interviewees to get a feel
for what they're comfortable
with and the second
that they are uncomfortable
or they don't want
to go further, we stop.
We are not there to interrogate.
We are there to provide an
outlet for them to share
and to feel comfortable and to
feel welcomed to open up to us.
For me, it's just ethically
wrong to push somebody
on a subject that they don't
want to discuss and especially
if they have told us beforehand,
you know, here's some things
that I don't feel
comfortable talking about,
we will never go into those.
And if somebody does get
emotional, we pull back
and we give them a moment
to compose themselves,
let them guide us at that point.
And if it's something that
they want to go further into,
we're happy to be
that outlet for them.
But if they decide that they
need to make a turn and go
in a different direction, we
are always respectful of that
because we want to
provide the best experience
for them in opening up to us.
>> Guha Shankar: Can I just
maybe ask you a question or--
and Mark also a question?
So somebody says
something on a camera
and then they later decide that
they have perhaps revealed more
than they wanted to know,
what is your approach
to those kinds of situations.
Any of my colleagues here.
>> Emily Carley:
I can take that.
>> Guha Shankar: Sure.
>> Emily Carley: We-- Well,
I always call us the
keepers of these memories.
We are not the owners
of these memories.
So we have had and
it has been very rare
that somebody will come
back and say, you know,
I know I shared this,
but it's for my family.
We'll have people go on
to emotional, you know,
outpourings that they
wanted for their families
that they don't want
necessarily online or something
that is uncomfortable for them.
I actually had a gentleman
who had an entire tape
that he decided he
wasn't comfortable putting
out in the public.
And we give them that right
because we're asking so much
of them already in
opening up to us.
For a lot of these gentlemen and
women sometimes we're strangers,
and so we understand
that we're asking a lot.
And so if they come
back and they don't want
to share something, we mark it
as something not to be shared.
Or I'll tell our editors not to
share it, but we are respectful
of that because we're asking
so much of them to begin with.
>> Mark Franklin:
And we do the same,
we actually had a veteran
come back and said, you know,
I called the person
out by name--
>> Andrew Ringlee: Right.
>> Mark Franklin: -- person
they were complaining about,
they call them out by name,
I shouldn't have done that,
can you edit that
out and absolutely.
As then we said,
we don't own these.
It's there-- Those are there
experiences, so we honor that.
>> Guha Shankar: Right.
>> Emily Carley: And to
follow up real quick if I can,
even after editing if
somebody wants to pull it
from the website, we
give them that option too
because we are here
to be respectful--
>> Mark Franklin: Right.
>> Emily Carley:-- of
what they're sharing.
>> Guha Shankar: Right.
>> Andrew Ringlee: So then
on the flip side though,
are there some-- are there any
lines that we must always cross?
>> Mark Franklin: See, I'm not
sure I understood the question,
but I'm going to reinterpret
that as how far do we push
things maybe and I'll tell you,
I don't think there's
any question
that should off the table
but going to Guha's point,
you have to recognize that some
of these questions are going
to require-- they're going
to require an awful lot
of sensitivity because
they are difficult.
One of the questions we
asked about Vietnam veterans,
what was your worst day?
Well, there are a lot of worst
days in Vietnam and we know
that that is a very,
very difficult question
for some of our veterans.
But I think that if the
question is asked with respect
and a certain amount of
sensitivity, I guess I would say
that probably all
questions are on the table
and not necessarily
off the table.
>> Joseph Galloway: And
we balance the question,
what is the worst day
of your year in Vietnam
by immediately asking what was
your best day in that tour.
And we find those two questions
elicit some very good responses.
>> Emily Carley: I'd
like to actually expand
on what Joe just said.
You know, we talked a
lot about the combat
and the war experience
and we kind of go
in a different direction as
well in some of our interviews,
what was something
humorous you saw.
We're talking about 17, 18,
19, 20-year-old kids away
from home overseas with a
bunch of other 17, 18, 19,
20-year-old kids, for the
first time some of them.
So we ask about the
humorous experience,
it's not all the bad stuff.
We want to know what you ate,
what you think of the food,
what was the funniest
thing you saw,
what was something
interesting that you did know
about another culture,
things like that.
So we try to get the full story.
And I kind of interpreted
this question a little bit
differently as well in terms
of lines to always cross
which is kind of going back to
one of my earlier responses,
which is picking up
on the little things.
It's something that,
as an interviewer,
so vitally important to push
them, to think of things
that they might not have pulled
out of there memories in 20, 30,
50, 70 years sometimes.
So, it's being able to recognize
those little tidbits and expand
on those further and push them
to explore their
memories further.
>> Andrew Ringlee: So
lastly, as an interviewer,
what role should we have
in a difficult balance
between objectivity and memory?
Are these two incompatible,
objectivity and memory?
And do we-- should we take on
the role where we are trying
to guide the interviewee toward
a more objective interview?
>> Guha Shanar: So the people
with whom we've been
conducting interviews,
and I assume this also
the case for folks here,
is that we're asking
60, 70-year-olds
to recall what was like,
I think as Emily's point,
when they were 18, 19, and 20.
So not only has time passed
but they themselves have had
a chance to reflect on it
in many occasions and
reconsider what their actions
and what their feelings were.
The subject-- The objectivity
question, I'm not even sure
that I use that word because
all of our relationships,
all of our memories
are intersubjective.
We're always balancing
them and filtering them
to the experiences we've
had since the moment
that they occurred and
something has happened.
We've always accrued
all of these memories
and especially the case
with people who have--
who are looking back in
the long, in a duration
of their lives and looking
through a time tunnel back
when they were like--
when they are,
as they were 50 and
60 years ago.
So memory is always fragmentary.
Memory is always
inflected by other memories
and memory is always partial.
And partial in both
senses of the term.
It's partial because it is
fragmented and it is partial
because you have a particular
way in which you wish
to view your actions or the
actions of those around you.
So I don't really worry
too much about the memory
and objectivity question.
What is the story that
they want to tell,
it just comes back to that.
And how you balance that out
against the historical fact
after you get to the interview,
that's your own business
as an interviewer.
This sort of goes back
to the question of,
do you correct people in
the middle of interview.
I take grave exception to my
colleagues who, and I insist
on saying things at
well, you said 63
but I think I actually meant 64.
Well, does it really matter?
I mean, at that moment
of the interview,
you can always correct
that after the fact
but all you do is just introduce
more doubts into somebody's
in a historical perspective
and memorialization
of an event that happened.
That takes people off track.
It just doesn't really serve
the purpose in that sense.
That's-- So that's where I
stand I think in that question.
>> Joseph Galloway: And I
would throw in that, you know,
I am an old Texas
storyteller and I love stories
and really see-- my job
as an interviewer is
to make them feel
comfortable enough
to begin telling their
stories and telling them--
and let them go with it
where they want to go.
If they want to go for two
hours, we're quite fine.
We can change the chip in those
cameras and let them roll.
And I find that the truth and
objectivity is less important
than getting them to open
that vein and let it flow.
>> Mark Franklin: I guess the
only thing that I would add is
that as the interviewer,
you have to make sure you
don't ask leading questions.
So if a veteran comes back
and expresses an experience,
we've had some-- tell us
about some horrible combat
that they had and they were
told to do it on a mission
and you got a sense that
they blamed their leadership
and so a question you
wouldn't want to ask, I guess,
is well you probably
get really angry
at your leadership over that.
Well, that's kind of obvious,
you don't need to ask them
that they probably will
tell you or they will not
but that's not your job.
So, in terms of objectivity,
you do have to be careful not
to ask those kinds of leading
questions that go to an answer
that you're expecting rather
than this Guha and Joe said,
just let the veteran take
the interview where he wants.
>> Emily Carley: And if I
may add on that a little bit,
the way we look at witness
stories, we're not trying
to be the historical record,
we're trying to complement it,
to supplement with the human
aspect of what you find
in the history book, what
the media has covered.
There's no amount of
writing that can be done
that can tell you what a soldier
saw in combat, the sights,
the sounds, the smells and the
emotions that they were feeling.
So, the way I look at it
is you give me a battle
and I'll give you
somebody who was there
who could tell you what
it really felt like.
Not the movements of the units,
not the overarching aspect
of the war, the political
viewpoint,
that's not what we're
looking for.
We're looking to supplement
that historical record
with the people who were there
and even in a, I know a lot
of these-- all these guys
can probably speak to this,
you get guys who are in
the same, exact unit,
in the same combat
situation, two feet apart
and saw a different things.
It's impossible to cover all
that in a written record.
And so, what we're trying to
do is give that human aspect,
the soldier perspective.
And what we in a lot of
times do and just speak
to Mark's point is,
we won't lead them
by asking particular questions,
but we can help guide them.
So, if they're having trouble
coming up with the name
of an island, we can
help bring that to them.
And then that's why it's
important as interviewer
to know your historical context.
Then we're all, you know,
students of military history,
whether it's something that
we did professionally or kind
of just came organically.
And it's important
for us to be able
to help guide them especially
with the older veterans.
For example for us,
for the Witness--
excuse me World War II veterans
being able to help guide them.
And so, it's important also
to know your subject before
you dive in to an interview
so that you can help them
through that process
as much as possible.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Thanks and
I'd like to open the floor
to questions from the audience.
Yes please.
>> Hi.
>> Andrew Ringlee: We have--
>> I'm sorry I have
a microphone for you.
>> OK. Thank you.
I was going to ask
Emily in particular.
Thank you for telling me
about your foundation.
I didn't know about it,
first thing about the
Veterans History Project
because I work here and
I've actually interviewed
some people.
Apparently, there are
other organizations
that also do something similar.
So, is the role of your
foundation to be complementary,
not competitive Veterans
History Project,
I was just wondering if--
I know school children
are certainly encouraged
around the country to work
with Veterans History Project,
but what if a veteran
is approached and says,
"I already gave an interview
to another organization."
Apparently, the state
of Texas has one too,
Voices of Veterans in Texas.
So, is it helpful for a veteran
to give more than one interview.
I know not to the
same organization
but to other organizations.
>> Emily Carley: That's a
really interesting question.
And actually, we do some work
with the Veterans
History Project
and also the Vietnam
War Commemoration.
We've actually been
collaborating with Joe and Mark
to interview Vietnam veterans
around the country using our
interviewer and videographer
to help supplement their work.
So, there is some
overlap as you mentioned
between our organizations
and we donate
to the Veterans History Project
and they come to
us for things too.
So, we do run across people
who have had interviews done
by multiple organizations.
I think the thing I
would say about that is,
it depends on the
veteran if they are open
to doing multiple interviews,
we'll certainly do that.
And every interviewer
has a different style.
People are looking
for different things.
Some people are looking
for different aspects.
You know, if it was
a three war vet,
somebody may only be
looking towards them
for Vietnam content.
And we maybe wanted to
cover the whole spectrum.
So, it kind of, you know, goes
in a lot of different ways.
One thing that differentiates
Witness to War
with some others groups that
we are not specifically focused
on one geographical location.
So, we travel across
the country.
We've been all the way
to Oregon and California,
all the way up to New York.
So, we cover a wide
range of people.
We also go to a lot of reunions
where we get veterans together
from the same units,
from the same wars.
So, we're not focused
on one particular area.
We don't just stay in Atlanta
and do interviews there.
We're actually going to
Arizona with Mark in a few weeks
to do some interviews out there.
So, there are a lot of
people doing things similar,
there are a lot of vets.
And there are a lot of
vets in obscure areas.
And I always say that's kind
of my sweet spot is finding
that vet in a rural area
who never had an outlet
to share their story and
doesn't live in a big city
where there are these
organizations.
And those are the type of people
that we're fortunate to get to.
Did that answer well?
OK.
>> So, I have a question
about-- my name is Ken.
I wrote the letter so it's
not a planet question.
OK. I believe that you're
[inaudible] you talk to veterans
about their war time experience.
And the question I have
is, in these interviews,
do veterans come to you or
do you ask the questions
of how their war
time experiences
and stories affected them
as a person, at the war,
realizing many years had passed.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Yes.
>> Do they give you a good and
bad in different, say topic.
I think that's important to
talk with veterans about that.
>> Joseph Galloway: Toward
the end of the interview,
we always ask that question.
Did your experiences in
combat affect your life
after you got out of the army?
How did it affect your life?
And they're very
open and honest.
Some will say they fought their
demons with alcohol and drugs.
And thank God, they survive that
and have gotten along
to a better place.
We ask them, have you visited
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?
And what are your
thoughts when you go there?
And I've seen men just
absolutely breakdown and weep,
trying to answer that question.
But we do go into that.
>> Mark Franklin: There's a
whole section at the very end.
We have a section
called reflections
where we ask those kinds of
questions, what did the war mean
to you in your generation?
How did it affect
your life afterwards?
Some did have trouble adjusting.
Some went on to become
attorney's general
for the States of
Hawaii and other states.
I mean, so there
are success stories
and there are less
successful stories.
But ultimately, they all come
back and they figure it out.
But, yes, great question
and, yeah,
that's one of things
we address them.
>> Andrew Ringlee: OK.
Do you want to add in?
>> Guha Shankar: Yeah.
And I suppose to mean,
if you want to look
at the freedom struggle as war
by another name in this country
and the people who are
there in the frontline
as I mentioned before, those
were formative moments for them.
And some of them carried it
through with them
all their lives.
And some of them still
carry through with all the--
carry through the experience
of those events in Mississippi
and Georgia and North
Carolina to this day.
And it shaped who they were
and it shaped them as people
and it shaped the
kinds of projects
that they were involved in.
And they will tell you that it
gave them the sense of identity
in ways that they didn't
even can see those before.
And that's always the question,
is it's not just what did you
do during the war slash civil
rights movement, slash
this event, that it's--
how did that, you know, make
you the person you are today.
And how does that influence the
decisions, the choices you make.
And more importantly,
how do your--
what would you say your
experiences are and how--
what kind of advice would
you give other people want
to follow along in
your footsteps.
So, these notions of shaping in
which these events do for you.
And we try to get that--
get at that, I think,
is a lot of historians
do in every interview
that we do whether it's the
American Folk Life Center
Civilized History
Project or any project
that folks here have
done perhaps.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Oops,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
You'll be next.
Please go ahead.
>> Thank you for being here
and thank you very much
for what you do and
in particular,
thank you veterans for serving.
I am a sister of a
fallen Vietnam vet.
What I would like
to know though is,
how can the family help
the veteran prepare
for an interview?
>> Mark Franklin: Oh,
that's a good question.
Well--
>> Joseph Galloway: Go ahead.
>> Mark Franklin: OK.
I mentioned one of our
first interviews was
with General Tom
Hill in San Antonio.
Then we had another interview
with General Cavazos,
who was both a Korean
War veteran
and a Vietnam War veteran.
And General Cavazos was
in the beginning stages
of cognitive decline,
if you will.
And his wife worked
very, very hard with him.
We gave them the
questions in advance.
And this is-- not
everybody does it this way.
For us, we always give
the veterans the questions
in advance to kind of help
them prepare, to start thinking
about that time that
happened 50 years ago.
And she worked very, very
hard with him to prepare him
for that interview knowing
that some things would be
difficult for him to remember.
And he did well.
He didn't do as well
as he would have liked.
A couple of times, he
apologized, but you know,
Joe was great with him.
He actually-- We thought
give him, you know,
his state of decline,
he did extremely well.
And I would credit her for
helping prepare him for that.
In terms of how other
family members might help,
some of the veterans,
they're right on the line,
right up until the day of.
And we have heard, you know,
particularly the spouse say,
I really wanted him to do this.
I really thought it was
important that he do it.
And they kind of push them along
right up to the time they sit
in that chair and some
of these folks are right
on the edge right
to the very end.
So.
>> Joseph Galloway: And some of
the spouses sit there and listen
because they are hearing
answers and stories
that they had never heard
in 40 years of marriage,
coming out of that veteran.
>> Emily Carley: Our process
is very similar to Mark's.
We actually provide an
information packet prior
to the interview as
long as it's somebody
that we have scheduled
ahead of time.
If it's somebody that comes
to us in a reunion situation,
obviously we don't have
as much prep with them.
But it's a packet that
asks them to kind of walk
through their service.
And they a lot of times will
use children and spouses
to help bring those
memories back,
go through their
paperwork, their photos
to help refresh them
a little bit.
So, that's hugely
important for the families
that are helping these
veterans prepare.
And to Joe's point, we do have
a lot of spouses and children
that sit down on the interviews
and help kind of guide them
and remind them because, perhaps
the spouse heard the story 40
years ago and they can help
that veteran recall that.
And I know that in the moment,
it's nerve-racking to be sitting
in front of a camera and
sharing these experiences.
So, it may just help to
prompt them on this stories
that they might otherwise
loss over.
>> Mark Franklin: Ma'am, if I--
and this has noting to
do with oral histories.
But ma'am, if I understand you,
then you are a gold star sister?
>> I'm a gold star sister.
>> Mark Franklin: We have-- If
you would talk to me afterwards,
if you stay we have a
certificate of honor program
for families of fallen
Vietnam Veterans I'd
like to talk to you about.
>> Thank you.
>> Mark Franklin: Sure.
>> Joseph Galloway: We
have a question over here.
[Inaudible]
>> Mark Franklin: That was next.
>> Have you ever had
the opportunity or goal
of interviewing any of our
past adversaries or allies
with the irony being our
past-- some of our past allies,
some of our worst enemies,
potentially and vice versa,
some of our enemies are now
some of our best allies.
>> Mark Franklin: We have
interviewed the enemies
of Americans who came
here as refugees.
We have not interviewed
any of the five allies
that provided combat forces.
Remember in terms of-- I mean,
the Koreans, the Australians,
the [inaudible],
Philippines, and Thai,
we have not interviewed
them yet.
Right now we're focused on those
US service members that served
in Vietnam, but we
have interviewed some
Vietnamese-American refugees.
And we have interviewed
some gold star families.
>> Joseph Galloway: And I would
say that in doing the research
for writing the book,
"We Were Soldiers Once...
and Young", General Moore and I
returned to Vietnam two times,
to Hanoi and sat and
did recorded interviews
with General Vo Nguyen Giap, the
commander of the enemy forces
with General Nguyen Huu An Wen,
who was Moore's opposite member
in the battles of the la Drang
and with General [inaudible],
who was a central
committee member
and was the political officer
of the entire North
Vietnamese army.
And we found the more we talk,
the more truthful they became.
And we could not have
had the same book
without having heard
their voices
and reflected them in the story.
>> Guha Shankar: And I will say
that are many historical
accounts of the freedom struggle
which actually focus on the
responses and the reactions
of people who were
segregationist,
why segregationists, who's
failed to this day, spouse,
principles and the patterns
of thought which never changed
over the course of
50 or 60 years.
So, those kind of stories
are also available for--
in many other venues, I think.
>> Joseph Galloway: They should
be interviewed from prison.
>> Emily Carley: We've
also interviewed people
on the other side.
We actually have interviewed
other allies as well,
British royal, marine
to get that perspective.
And we've interviewed
a German soldier.
I interviewed personally
a young man
who was a Hitler
youth in World War II.
And I find this perspective
interesting
because they were no
older than our young men
that we were sending off to war.
And it's interesting
to see what they knew,
what they had been told,
how they had been formed
to have these opinions.
And the Hitler Youth for
example, he was a kid.
And, you know, and I find
that perspective
incredibly interesting
because he was going based off
of what propaganda he had
been fed his whole life.
And so, I think it makes
sense more well rounded
as interviewers to understand
the other side of the fence
and to know where
the enemy was coming
from in their mindset as well.
And it helps form questions
for our veterans when going
into that process as well, to
talk to them about the enemy
and what they knew about them.
So, I find those interviews
incredibly important.
We don't seek them out.
But when they come to us, we
certainly take that opportunity.
>> Guha Shankar: Yeah.
And I think Ken Burns
latest series has a number
of interviews with members
of Viet Cong and NVA
who are talking about
there misperceptions
of what America was
about just in the way
that Americans have
misperceptions
about what Vietnam was about.
I found that completely
revealing still to this day.
>> Andrew Ringlee: Sir.
>> Joe Davis: Hi.
I'm Joe Davis, and I'm the
public affairs director
for the National Veterans of
Foreign Wars Organization.
And I want to thank Emily
for the shout out there.
I want to tell a quick
story about Joe Galloway
and then ask a question.
My introduction to Joe
Galloway, a younger--
a much younger captain
back there
in the dessert shield storm.
We had a list of I want
to say about 125 reporters
to interview General
Schwarzkopf, one-on-one.
Huge list.
He shows up in theater
like three days
after the air war started.
He goes right to the top of
the list, just like that.
I asked my colonel, who
was that, who was that?
They told me a story.
Young Joe Galloway interviewed
a young Major Norman Schwarzkopf
in Vietnam.
Basically asked him, Major,
what's the definition
of close air support?
Major Schwarzkopf says
a hundred B52 circle
and overhead waiting
for my call.
That made it into print.
They were lifelong friends.
He made it in the
theater and boom,
right to the top of the list.
It's all about relationships
right there.
My question is, as you're
interviewing your people during
that go, no-go time,
what do you do
when you absolutely know your
interviewee as blowing smoke?
>> Mark Franklin: You let him
talk and you deal with it later.
>> Emily Carley:
I'd say exactly.
Yeah.
>> Joseph Galloway: I would call
back one interview that I did
and I would only say as
brown watered navy guy.
And I asked the lead question
in our list of many questions
and this guy was a motor mouth
and he just went into a stream
of consciousness roll out
of utter BS and it went
on for probably an
hour and a half.
I never got another question in.
And before it was done,
I was nodding off.
You know, there's nothing
you can do except throw
that film away.
>> Emily Carley: Yeah,
exactly how we approach it.
And I think I can beat that Joe.
I think I sat through about a
three-hour interview one time
where I knew in the
first 10 minutes
that this was not
a truthful telling.
And I let him go and as soon
as I walked out of there,
I marked the interview as
something that we couldn't use.
I think it's very rare for us
to come across people like that.
>> Joseph Galloway:
It is very rare.
>> Emily Carley: People that
want to share their stories it's
because they want to
get this out there not
because they are trying
to gain fame or glory.
And if we ever have any
doubts I send it to somebody
who knows more about a
particular situation than I do.
That's the beauty of being
in a situation that we're all
in is we have lots of contacts
with people who, you know,
maybe better experts on
particular subjects than we are
and who can do research.
Actually I have a guy,
kind of my back pocket
that if I have any
question I go to him
and give him the information,
he can pull their records
and we can make sure
that everything,
you know, matches up correctly.
But it's rare.
I don't come across
that very often.
And if somebody ever comes
onto the site and says, eh,
this doesn't sound quite
right to me, we'll pull it
until we can figure it out.
So, we always air on
the side of caution.
Fortunately, we haven't
had to do that very often.
>> Hi everyone.
Thank you very much being here.
This is really wonderful.
I have a question about records
preservation and how each
of you, through your respective
institutions, are ensuring
that these vital stories
that you're being told
will be available?
Are they being transcribed?
And with changing technology,
how do you address that?
>> Emily Carley: I
can take that one.
That's actually a
fantastic question
and I have actually bounced this
off of a lot of other people
in the same arena as
myself because as you noted,
technology is constantly
changing.
We are in an environment
where there's always
something new coming out.
Somebody recently said
to me, are you going
to start interviewing in 4k?
And I said, no.
Because this preservation
piece is something we're always
running into.
So, we've got a lot
of processes in place
and I'm constantly
researching how to do this.
We back up and back
up and back up.
So, we have original tapes
from our first interviews
that were done on
little mini DVDs.
We got DVD backups of those.
And now we're digitizing
all of those.
So, I use a service in Atlanta
that goes through all that tape
and makes digital copies.
And then we back all that up.
And now we're starting
to store things offsite
because this is such an issue.
And as we get further
into technology,
the files sizes become larger.
So, then that, you know,
compounds the issue.
So, it's something we're
always kind of thinking
about because I never want
to look back in 20 years
and think we had the only
interview done with a guy
who landed on Omaha
Beach and it's gone.
I mean, that would be a
kick in the gut for me.
So, it's something we're
always kind of thinking about
and it's always evolving.
So, always keeping ahead
of that and making sure
that things are backed up
and constantly checking that.
But it's a learning curve
and it never seems to stop.
>> Guha Shankar: And I guess
maybe from the perspective
of the Library of Congress,
the American Folklife Center,
I would point out my colleague
Rachel Mears in the audience
who has been dealing
with the shock and trauma
of changing technology over
the course of the last 10 years
of obsolete formats,
data migration,
digitization and so on.
And we did, I think, the smart,
if not the cautious thing
by saying we're not going
to go to tape anymore,
we're going directly
to born digital
for the Civil Rights
History Project interviews.
And all of those are
backed up on our servers,
which I've been told
reliably are suppose to exist
for the life of the
republic plus 500 years.
So, when the roaches are all
finally in place at the Library
of Congress and nobody else
holds sway except them,
they will let us know
whether those bits
and bytes are all in place.
With regard to transcriptions,
we--
it's an enormous
undertaking as you know
to transcribe materials.
We built it in to our
contracts and our project plan
that every interview
that we have was going
to be transcribed fully.
We use transcription service.
We would love to say that,
you know, as we move further
down the line, the
crowdsourcing and this sort
of digital technologies
like immediate voice
to text transcription
tools are going
to solve the problem for us.
And I'm here to bare witness
that that is absolutely
not the case.
And so, I think that's
still laborious process of--
and doing this by hand,
of careful listening,
those are all going to be
with us for a very long time.
So, I think, back to Emily's
point, our technology is
in betwixt and between
the old and the new.
And we're always trying
to find ways to, you know,
fit in maximizes efficiencies.
But we are-- you know,
technology is not our friend.
It doesn't have to kill us,
but it's not our friend.
>> Joseph Galloway: And the
government doesn't handle
that terribly well.
>> Guha Shankar: Thank you.
[laughter]
>> Mark Franklin:
We will be very,
very happy when we can
transfer everything we have
to the Library of Congress,
the Veterans History Project
to ensure it lives on.
But we have redundant processes
in place now where we back them
up on a shared server.
We have one person who
is transcribing these
and as Guha mentioned, it is
incredibly labor intensive
and he is very, very thorough.
So that's taking some
time, but the goal is
to also transcribe these
interviews as well.
>> Guha Shankar: All right.
I just saw Karen, Lloyd
and Rachel Mears break
on the cold sweat at that.
But the thought of this
coming over to trans,
but I'll let them
deal with that one.
>> I also come from an archival
background, and I'm wondering
when you're talking about
correcting information
or editing after the fact,
if you have any process
for documenting that or kind
of respectfully acknowledging
any misremembered information,
things that could be
factually checked,
especially when you're
selecting clips to send
out for education purposes
or highlighting them
in your collections
for research.
>> Guha Shankar: So, I'll take
over the very specific interview
from the Civil Rights
History Project
in which we interview
the family down south.
And they were prominent in their
hometowns, in the deep south,
in the civil rights struggle.
Along the way, they
told a story,
one of the incidents they
told was about having
to transport guns in the back--
this is an African-American
family,
who are basically subject
to daily persecution.
And as a matter of
self-defense, they had guns
in their car that
they transport.
Now, mind you, this instance--
this incident took
place at the time
of the interview 50 years prior.
After they told that story and
rather I would say, you know,
intense story about
them fleeing in cars
with a 16-year-old driver in a
car transporting these weapons,
they came back to us
about a year later
when we're getting ready to
post the materials online.
And they said, we believe
that we made a mistake
in sharing that story.
What can you do about it?
We talked to our General
Counsel's Office here
at the Library and our
partner organization,
the National Museum of
African-American History
and Culture who had actually
initially approached us
about this.
And we decided we were going to
redact that particular story.
Now, 50 years, I think is
probably-- I'm not a lawyer,
but I think it's well passed
the statute of limitations when,
you know, transporting
guns can be a problem.
But we did it as a matter of,
you know, I mean, that's just--
that's ancient history,
you would think.
We redacted that story,
or that piece of story.
I edited out on the
online presentation.
Two weeks later, the house of
that family was firebombed.
Because people have long
memories, and it's not
that they heard story,
it's just that they knew
that they were telling
their story
to the national library,
the national museum.
So, the point there was, we did
it not as a matter of legality
or because we just
felt good about it,
but we understood
the ramifications
for people are far beyond our
ability to handle in terms
of what we do as, you know, in
terms collecting their stories
and preserving for posterity.
There's another responsibility
that obtains
and they essentially
hint to that and said,
we could have some problems.
Regardless of what we did,
the problem still
manifested themselves.
So, that's an extreme
example of it.
And occasionally,
we make corrections
of the transcript more and
sort of the mundane things.
It's like saying the 1964,
we just say parenthetically,
in 1965 was the actual
interview.
We don't go back and
edit it out, the voice
or something like that.
And I'm not sure if
that's in your experience.
>> Emily Carley: Yeah,
we-- I mean, as for us,
it's such a case by case basis.
A lot of our veterans,
especially World War II,
they're not talking a lot
about dates specifically
and things like that.
So, that's less of
a focus for us.
If something were totally out of
left field, we might just leave
that out because it could
potentially ruin the credibility
of the rest of their interview,
which we know to be true, right.
So, it's really-- it's
the subjective things.
We have three editors that
go through our content.
And so, they kind of go things--
go through things on
a case by case basis.
So, it's an interesting
question.
I don't have a super direct
answer because it varies.
We also do descriptions on each
of the clips that we post online
so we can provide better context
around things if necessary.
And sometimes an interview clip
can't stand on its own anyways.
So, we'll use a description
to kind of lead up to
that particular story so we can
add notes in there and things
like that if necessary.
But it really just depends.
It varies a lot.
>> Mark Franklin: Pretty
much I echo what they said.
We've had one example of someone
who has this to redact a name,
simply because they
called out a name.
And to me that's an easy fix
and probably doesn't require
any disclaimer or caveat.
If we did run across that,
there's couple ways we
could probably deal with it.
We will-- When we start editing
these to put both on our website
and share elsewhere,
we can use title cards
or we can use little notes
that might amplify the content.
And the guy that does
the transcribing for us,
he also does his own notes
with the transcription
and so we can call things
out there to indicate
that the viewer or the reader
might want to do more research
or look this up somewhere
else as well.
>> Guha Shankar: Along those
lines, on a perhaps not
so intense note, there was
one interview in particular
which went for four hours in the
Civil Rights History Project.
And in it, the interviewee
who's rather salty and a veteran
of the civil rights movement
dropped the word and I will--
it begins with an M, ends
with an R, about 20 times
over the course of
the interview.
And I heard it and
I was like, it's OK.
Then somebody who was more prone
to like looking at these things
as though they were
in light of the fact
that they were education
materials being seen
by small children said, "Can
we do something about that?"
So, I spent a lot of time
bleeping out that word.
That took me six hours to
get to that interview trying
to like make sure that I got all
of those words out
off the record.
And then I left it out of the--
I edited the transcript so that
that no longer shows
up there either.
You want the original interview,
come listen to it
if you want to.
We have it still, so.
>> Emily Carley: That's
actually a great point.
And to kind of build on that.
We will tag interviews.
So, we want the raw emotion
and the raw language.
And what they were thinking
in the moment may have been,
you know, with the explicit
language if they are being,
you know, an artillery
coming down on them.
So, we will mark those as, you
know, something you may want
to review before you show it to
children and things like that.
So, that people can use
their own discretion,
but we don't particularly
edit things like that
out because it's not true to
the story that they're telling.
But we at least live
it up to the viewers
so that they don't
pop something on.
And hopefully-- I would
hope in a classroom setting,
a teacher would review
material before they show it.
But we try to make sure
that that doesn't happen.
And then the stuff
that I mentioned
about our educational
component, we've actually--
those clips, have tried to
pull ones that could be showed
in a general audience.
And of course, if there were
anything questionable we would
mark it as such.
But I think that's
a great point of how
to handle this kind
of situations.
And you know, we just try
to make sure the viewer knows
what they're getting into.
>> Guha Shankaer: Right.
I guess it's just that,
if I started noticing
that word kept propping up like
every other breath, I was like,
OK, I think maybe we need
to do something about this.
But it's not-- I prefer Emily's
and let the viewer beware
or listener beware of what's
coming up in this interview.
>> Hi. Question I have is, at
the beginning of all of this,
you mentioned that
because the two
of you have military
experience, have been in combat,
have been at Vietnam, you tend
to draw more honest,
open, real answers.
What about those of us
who have not served,
who would like to do
oral histories and would
like to be able to
get those stories
and that complete background.
How do you do that?
>> Mark Franklin: Well I don't--
Yeah, if implied that I do a
better job than someone else
who wasn't in military, that
wasn't what I was trying to say.
We do share a common
military cultural experience.
And so, you have a common
language right off the bat,
that both of us are very,
very comfortable with.
But what we're fighting
is that more and more now,
particularly Vietnam War
veterans, they're willing
to share their experiences.
Emily's videographer that
I am borrowing next week
in Arizona is also a very,
very good interviewer.
He is a young man, hasn't served
in the military, and he manages
to get some very,
very good stories.
Don't mean to steal your
thunder their Emily,
but he does a great job.
So, I certainly wouldn't
want to discourage anyone.
My only point was there
are some experiences
that you simply won't
be able to relate to.
That doesn't mean they're
not willing to share them.
They maybe have a little
bit more difficulty.
But with someone like
Joe, who was there,
there's that immediate
connection that you--
he doesn't necessarily have to
work as hard as someone else.
But I certainly wouldn't
want to discourage anyone
from doing these interviews.
>> Emily Carley: If I may.
To build on that,
obviously, I stated,
I don't have a military
background myself.
And I have interviewed, gosh,
around 6 or 700 veterans myself.
And now we have our interviewer
that, Mark referenced,
who is doing interviews for us.
He's gotten us up to
2300 or around 2300.
And I think a lot of it
is knowing your subject,
letting them understand that
you know what they're going
to talk about.
That you've studied the subject.
Don't go in there
and have no idea
of what they're going to cover.
Don't know-- you know, if
you don't know anything
about what branch of
service they were in
or where they served, your
credibility is completely shut.
So-- And also letting them
understand how interested
you are.
You know, it's not
about your ego,
it's about helping
them find their voice.
So, going in there and
humbly asking them questions
in an interested manner and
not trying to, you know,
present yourself
as the know-it-all
of the interview process.
Just letting them
open up and share,
disarming yourself kind of.
>> Andrew Ringlee: All right.
We would like to thank everyone
for coming to our presentation
on ongoing oral history projects
and all the interviewer.
We've learned a lot today
about two different veterans
or history projects and
one involving civil rights
participants, participants
in the civil rights movement.
Thank you very much and I'm
going to give the microphone
over to Karen Lloyd for
a brief presentation.
[ Applause ]
>> Mark Franklin: I
think I can be heard,
I'm used to projecting.
But as I mentioned,
we have several--
we had couple hundred
different oral histories
so we now have them
in a new format.
We would like to
present the Library
of Congress Veterans History
Project with 104 of these.
There are more coming.
This isn't the end.
And we could not accomplish our
mission of ensuring the legacy
of the Vietnam Veterans
Service [inaudible]
without the Veterans
History Project.
So, we are very,
very, very grateful
that you guys have this.
And so, it is with a lot of
gratitude that we present that.
And really appreciate
all you've done.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: On behalf of a
grateful nation, we accept these
and we appreciate the work that
all of you folks are doing.
And on behalf of the Library, I
would like to thank each of you
for making the trip and
be willing to talk with us
and with this group
about what it's like on
that other side of the line.
I know I have [inaudible]
a lot today.
And I hope that you
all did as well.
>> Mark Franklin: Thank you.
>> Karen Lloyd: So,
again, thank you.
>> Mark Franklin: Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.