Texas program preserves oral histories of veterans

TEXAS - The Texas General Land Office is preserving the oral history of our veterans.

For years now, the Texas Veterans Land Board has been doing that with its Voices of Veterans program.

FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren spoke with Dr. Dawn Buckingham, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, to learn more about how the program works and why.

Mike Warren: For those who are not familiar, could you explain the program? What does it do?

Dawn Buckingham: You know, the Voices of Veterans program creates an oral and video record of our veterans and their stories. We actually usually have a veteran doing the interview. The interviews last for 1 to 2 hours, but then they are saved in the Digital Land Office archives forever. And it is so fun because so many of the families of our veterans, the veterans, kind of open up, and they tell stories they hadn't even told their family yet. So it's amazing for the families, that maintains a record of that veteran's service forever. And it is just wonderful to be able to tell these stories and get them out to everyone.

Mike Warren: Is it primarily World War II veterans who are participating in this?

Dawn Buckingham: It's every veteran. So we have veterans from all different kinds of conflicts hearing their stories, all different kinds of ranks, officers as well as non-officers. And it's just amazing to hear their stories, their sacrifice, what they went through. It just reminds us again and again that we are the land of the free because of the brain.

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Mike Warren: How many veterans have participated in Voices of Veterans over the years now?

Dawn Buckingham: As of right now, we have over 500. If anyone wants to participate, all they have to do, we have a phone number on our website as well as more information, but they can just email voicesofveterans@glo.texas.gov

Mike Warren: Are historians able to study these stories, and is there scholarship coming out of this? In addition to families being able to know the stories of their loved ones?

Dawn Buckingham: When you hit on the perfect point, historians, you know, for hundreds of years to come, will be looking back at these veterans' stories, stories correlating them with what was going on, referencing, referencing them against each other. So we really believe that this creates an archive that will last forever and be used for a very long time.

Mike Warren: Why do you think this is important?

Dawn Buckingham: You know, telling our history is incredibly important. Honoring our veterans and their families for their service is incredibly important. And documenting the firsthand experience, I think, is important.

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Mike Warren: And for veterans out there who want to participate. What's the what's the best way they can do this? How easy is it?

Dawn Buckingham: It's super easy to participate. You can just go on the Texas General Land Office website, or if you want to just more directly email, you can just email voicesofveterans@glo.texas.gov

Mike Warren: And is that something that they can do over the phone or do they need to go to a location? How does it work?

Dawn Buckingham: We can do it in person, or we can do it over the phone. We can do audio only or audio and video.

Mike Warren: Okay, terrific. It is a great program that's been going on, how many years, at least 15 years, right?

Dawn Buckingham: A very long time. Absolutely. And we're going to keep it going forever.