In history's trenches

Ed Berman doesn't just collect war stories. He rescues them from the scrapheap of history.

Take the woman in World War II so slender she was lowered head first to weld between ships' hulls.

Or the American captured by Italian troops, who escaped when his plane crashed on the way to a prison camp, then fought alongside Italian partisans until he was captured by the Germans.

And the man whose combat wound saved him from making the Bataan Death March, but not from the tin mines in Japan, where he weighed 85 pounds when rescued.

And that's his goal: To salvage the stories that are in danger of disappearing along with their generation. Berman, 76, started the Veterans History Project at Rossmoor in 2002, sparked by a nationwide project at the Library of Congress and stoked by the fact that 1,500 veterans die each day in the United States.

Since then, the group at the Walnut Creek retirement community has collected about 150 interviews to be archived at the Library of Congress.

"The main thrust of this thing is so that the young folks come along -- they're not going to learn from it because nobody learns from this stuff, they keep going at it -- but at least the kids get a chance to see what went on and how fruitless some of this is," said Jerry Swanstrom, who lends his technical expertise and the resources of the Rossmoor Video Club to the project.

"If you don't know your history, you tend to repeat the mistakes, and we can see it today," Berman said.

So the group scrambles to collect stories from as many of the estimated 1,000 veterans in Rossmoor as it can, interviewing the oldest first because, as Berman says, "We were losing people."

The stories don't always come easily. Like war itself, some are brutal and painful, tales of being shot from the sky and watching friends die; some are adventurous, accounts of courage and camaraderie in times of high drama. Just remembering them can be difficult, voicing them next to impossible. So sometimes, they just don't get told.

"The same absences of telling the story came out from Holocaust survivors," said group member Paul Rosenzweig. "The same thing, where the second generation never knew what that first generation went through until somebody got them to tell the story. You have the same thing here with the Second World War veterans."

The group uses questions suggested by the national project designed to loosen the tongue and tease out memories, but that doesn't mean the process is painless.

"When I was rehearsing with him, he warned me that when he comes to a certain part where his friend gets shot right between the eyes, standing right next him, and he cries, he cracks up every time," he said. "And it happened during the interview, and I had to read the last part of his exploits because he couldn't handle it."

Berman says one woman, "a lady Marine" who felt badly because she knew her desk duty had freed up somebody to go into combat, possibly to his death.

"I looked at her and I said, 'Understand that at the time you went into the Marines, nobody ever got drafted,'" he said. "Every Marine enlisted, and none of them enlisted to do desk duty. You freed up some guy to do what he wanted to do. You shouldn't feel guilty because you did that.' She said, 'I never looked at it that way.'"

And then there are the stories that will go to the grave with their owners. Berman recalls asking to hear the story of one man who was wearing a beribboned World War II cap.

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project has commended the group for its contribution, which has been unusually professional and prolific.

The library has more than 40,000 stories archived, some with digital components, all cross-referenced so people can search for particular units or battles or ships.

Library of Congress director Diane Kresh lauded the Rossmoor group in a November letter: "In every way, you have fashioned a project that serves as a model for quality and resourcefulness ... Your work has become a part of the permanent historical record of our nation."

"I've been doing this now two and a half years," Berman said. "And you look at the person you're interviewing, and you just can't imagine what horrors that this person went through. There's just nothing like it."

a big favorite, this is the oldest one that turned up (one of several copies on FR):

Autumn, 1942: It came down to one Marine, and one ship
Source: Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism
Published: October 23, 2000 Author: Vin Suprynowicz
Posted on 10/23/2000 10:11:29 PDT by gordgekko
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39f47141497d.htm

Oops, nope, this is the oldest one:

Toys for Boys & The Last Man Did Not Fail
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Published: Sunday, October 22, 2000 Author: Vin Suprynowicz
Posted on 10/22/2000 12:30:25 PDT by Slam
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39f340511235.htm

others:

Autumn,1942: It came down to one Marine, and one ship.(61 yrs ago)
Prev. posted on Enter Stage Right and Free Republic | October 23, 2000 | Vin Suprynowicz
Posted on 10/26/2003 3:18:06 PM EST by MadelineZapeezda
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008503/posts

Last Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Guadalcanal USMC Colonel Mitchell Paige has died
homeofheroes.com
Posted on 11/16/2003 11:15:05 PM EST by ErnBatavia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1023111/posts

How I learned about GI Joe
E-mail | December 1, 2005 | Unknown
Posted on 12/01/2005 1:48:56 PM EST by DJ Taylor
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1532094/posts

Thanks Smith for the ping.

Between your website and my son contacting the Vets, the battle of Peleliu will be remembered.

Also, the photo #50 of the Marine with his head in his hands....we found him! He's alive and lovin' the fact we're sending his photo to every Peleliu vet we can find. ;-)

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