Joy Marie Hallare / The Collegian

The wartime experiences of almost 100 veterans were officially inducted into the Henry Madden Library Tuesday.

Eighty firsthand chronicles and real-life narratives of this country’s military veterans were compiled by the Central California Veterans Oral History Project and will be permanently stored in the Henry Madden Library.

Beginning in the spring 2010 semester, the project has accumulated personal accounts of military life from veterans across the Valley. Mass communication and journalism professors Gary Rice and Alice Daniels counted on the skills of 45 Fresno State students to converse with the various servicemen.

Approximately 100 veterans and their student interviewers attended the event commemorating the induction of the audio and hard copies of the discussions along with any special documents, such as pictures or discharge papers, the veterans wanted to be held permanently in the library.

“It’s been one of the most exhausting projects I have taken on in my life,” Rice said. “But it is also one of the most rewarding. There were some [stories] that made you want to cry, some made you want to laugh and there were some that made your spine tingle.”

Rice’s exhaustion may continue in the future as he hopes the project will gather even more true-life experiences of those men and women who have lived through America’s various wars. Rice said he is hoping that funding from the provost office will keep the project afloat.

“Our goal is that this project will continue forever,” Rice said. “I would like to have one of the nation’s largest collections. With four million veterans in California there are plenty of people who haven’t told their stories.”

Rice said a touching situation occurred this semester that personified just how fragile these valuable stories truly are.

“A student was doing the interview with an older World War II veteran and his son was there too,” Rice said. “He did the interview and the son had never heard these stories either. Three days later the veteran died.”

Considering many veterans are aging, collecting their personal tales is a race against time. Rice said the oral histories can be used by anyone who wants to take a trip back in time.

“If you wanted, you can go to the library and sit down and you’ll be reading the direct, exact words of the people that took part in history, the people who actually did it,” Rice said.

Josh Shurley, a veteran himself, took part in interviewing those who shared similar experiences.

“It’s kind of frustrating people don’t always understand what the experience was like,” Shurley said. “I just wanted to help people who were interested have a better understanding from the veterans themselves.”

Shurley felt that people sometimes get a skewed view when military stories are portrayed in the media. Shurley interviewed Jim Wulf, a Vietnam War veteran. Wulf said he was comfortable talking about his experiences with war.

“It is my responsibility to pass down information to people like you,” Wulf said. “You can read books, but when you talk to somebody like myself who really has nothing to hide, maybe it will make a difference to somebody else’s opinion.”

Wulf said that telling his story is an important part of history, but to truly experience what he has one must actually go through it.

“You can tell somebody all you want to about war, but until you have been in it you really can’t understand,” Wulf said.

Wulf also felt that these interviews of veterans have their time and place.
“Timing is everything,” Wulf said. “Maybe the reason we are doing it now is because it is supposed to be done.”