Preserving your life story

Scott Slaughter Smith remembers.

The California native remembers those sweltering 76 hours in November 1943 when he and his fellow Marines fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific Campaign, taking the tiny atoll of Tarawa. He was a teenager, a rifleman in E Company, part of the 2nd Marine Division. And he was one of the first to hit the beach, a battlefield that claimed thousands of lives but was barely one square mile of coral and sand.

That was more than 60 years ago. And while Smith always remembered the events of those days, he rarely spoke of them. "For many veterans, what you went through, it just took so much out of you," Smith said. "You don't want to talk about it. It takes a while to get over it. Some folks never do."

Though it took many years, Smith, like many other vets, is currently sharing his memories. His first book, Unspoken Bond of Courage, is a record of his experiences during WWII.

"Reliving your past is important," Smith said. "And you have to keep important things in mind. You have to pass it on to kids, to younger generations who probably don't know what it was like. The past is important. Don't forget it."

In order to help pass some of the past along, Smith has donated copies of his book to numerous schools around his northern California home. "I'm just doing what comes naturally," he said. "It was such a great part of history. And history is important."

Andrew Carroll agrees. Carroll is head of the War Letters Project and editor of War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars. The book contains about 200 letters Carroll collected from veterans from the Civil War through Bosnia.

"So many children of veterans have told me they only began to recognize what their parents had gone through once they started reading their letters to one another, written years or even decades ago," Carroll said.

Carroll is still collecting the personal stories of veterans in order to preserve those memories for younger generations.

Randy Robison is also preserving his personal history for younger generations. The difference is that Robison is still on active duty. An Army chaplain, Robison is currently stationed at the Army Community Hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., and faces the possibility of being called to active duty in Iraq.

"It was something I could create and leave behind with my family and friends in case I was deployed and did not return," he said. "I have a 17-month-old son named Colby, and I wanted to make sure that he knew about his dad's life when he grows up."

In addition to Colby, Robison's wife Claudia is expecting their second child--yet another reason for him to want to preserve his life story.

Robison chose to preserve his personal memories electronically, making them available to his family and friends through the Internet site of Making Everlasting Memories.

"Everybody has a story to tell," said Scott Mindrum, president of Making Everlasting Memories. "We want to help people preserve and share their stories through words and images so that our personal history isn't lost."

Adds Robison: "I think that's very, very important. I always have my children in mind. I keep in mind what I want them to know."

MARK TURNER is a freelance writer based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group