J-school students honor veterans with project

By Josi Carlson
J-School Web reporter

For three weeks, while many students were away snowboarding and wasting precious Christmas money, a journalism class helped preserve an important chunk of the nation’s history that is in danger of being lost forever.

The Veterans History Project, taught by journalism professor Sheri Venema, is part of an effort by Congress to honor the nation’s war veterans for their service and collect their stories while they are still living.

“I saw it as a wonderful opportunity for upper-class journalism students,” Venema said. “A chance to put their skills to use in a real way.”

The class consisted of print, broadcast and photo students. It was a great opportunity to combine all of their talents, she said.

While Venema had originally planned to use the project in her Beginning Reporting class for graduate students, she managed to put it all together for a three-week Wintersession course.

The goal of the national Veterans History Project is to record oral histories of American veterans from all 20th century wars: World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.

But because the Wintersession course was only three weeks, Venema chose to focus on World War II and the Korean War. For the first week of class, students briefly studied the history of the wars. Then they found a veteran from the Missoula area and set up an interview. R-TV students taped the interviews and Thais Boise, the lone photo student in the class, took pictures.

Joe Friedrichs, a junior print major, found his project in Jesse Bier, a World War II veteran he met at the Grizzly Pool.

“Initially Mr. Bier seemed somewhat reluctant to do the project, or believe that it even existed,” Friedrichs said. “But after the facts were verified he was more than willing to tell his story.”

After doing some preliminary research and writing up questions, students did a filmed interview with their subject. Veterans shared stories of watching the atomic bomb being dropped, why they joined the army and the hells of war.

“Some of the people said that no one had ever asked them their story before,” Venema said. “That seems so odd to me.”

Some of the wives of the men who were being interviewed said that they had not even heard some of the stories, said Mark Legg, an R-TV major who filmed the interviews and helped with the editing.

“That’s what made it a fascinating experience for everyone involved,” he said.

The students then logged their films and reviewed the information gathered in order to write a story on their subjects.

“Each interview gave you a greater sense of what really happened in war,” Legg said.

All of the filmed interviews, written stories, photographs and the short edited video that featured highlights from all of interviews will be sent to the Library of Congress. The interviews will be included with others done throughout the nation and will be available for generations to come as part of the American Folklife Center National Veterans History Collection.

“I learned some interesting facts about the war during the class,” Friedrichs said. “But the one thing that really mattered to me from this class is Jesse Bier and the fact that his memories will not be forgotten.”