{"id":12639,"date":"2017-11-09T19:28:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T19:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/?p=12639&post_type=story"},"modified":"2022-03-11T14:54:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T14:54:16","slug":"in-their-words","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/in-their-words\/","title":{"rendered":"In Their Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fall 2017 | By Laura J. Cole<\/em><\/p>\n

The Department of Veteran Affairs reports that more than 1.5 million veterans live in\u00a0 Florida, making it the third largest veteran population in the nation, following California and Texas.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big number, but one that Barbara Gannon, an associate professor of history, sees as a big opportunity. Since 2011, she has been in charge of the UCF Community Veterans History Project, which records stories of Central Florida veterans. So far, they have recorded nearly 600 stories from veterans in every branch of the military, spanning from World War II to the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel that listening to veterans\u2019 stories is a way to show we appreciate them,\u201d says Gannon, an Army veteran. \u201cThe effect on students who don\u2019t know anything about or have any personal connection with the military is amazing. It really opens their eyes to a world they know nothing about.\u201d<\/p>\n

And sharing their stories \u2014 experiences that are often so removed from most civilians\u2019 \u2014 is the driving force behind the program, which is an offspring of the national Veterans History Project. Launched in 2000 by the Library of Congress, the national project is focused on collecting, preserving and making\u00a0accessible \u201cthe personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The national program came to UCF in the fall of 2010. Gannon, who specializes in military history, oral history and memory studies, was hired to oversee the interdisciplinary project.<\/p>\n

Each semester, Gannon offer an oral history workshop, teaching students how to conduct interviews properly; how to research the branches of the military, the missions, the wars, even military language to prepare themselves; and how to conduct mock interviews to prepare the veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask questions and allow the veteran to tell his or her story,\u201d says John Grande, a graduate history student and former Marine.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach story is so important for its own reason,\u201d says Tiffany Rivera, who oversees the project\u2019s outreach. \u201cMany times, veterans don\u2019t realize the importance themselves until they stop and think about it and share their experience with someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

[divider][\/divider][blockquote source=”” cite=”Tiffany Rivera, assistant director of educational and training programs” color=”” css_class=””]\u201cMany times, veterans don\u2019t realize the importance [of their stories] themselves until they stop and think about it and share their experience with someone else.\u201d[\/blockquote][divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

The reality is that there are so many stories to collect \u2014 a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. Students and staff are only able to collect and record so many.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t tell a 95-year-old World War II veteran to wait,\u201d Gannon says. \u201cVietnam veterans are aging. We have an entire generation of veterans, including veterans of our 21st-century wars, who have come home with stories to share. We need to hear them. We always have more work to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n

To put it in perspective,\u00a0there are 1,300 student veterans at UCF alone. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be able to get through all of our student veterans, but we like to think about partnerships as our force multiplier effect, which is a good military term,\u201d Gannon says.<\/p>\n

To reach more veterans, UCF partners with volunteers in places such as the Village on the Green senior community in Longwood and the Learning Institute for Elders (LIFE) at UCF to implement peer-to-peer programs. \u201cWe trained the volunteers the same way that we teach oral history workshops here on campus,\u201d Rivera says. \u201cThey did the mock interviews and were able to practice and become comfortable, but they also were able to relate to their veterans in a different way than our students.\u201d Those partnerships have resulted in 50 interviews.<\/p>\n

All of the interviews recorded so far are available through the UCF Special Collections website. We selected five interviews from the collection, so you can see for yourself the kind of work Gannon and her students have done and learn why these stories are so powerful \u2014 and such a valuable part of our nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

*Original interviews have been edited for length and clarity, but we opted to maintain the original voice of the\u00a0interviewees. As such, transcripts may include language and situations that may be inappropriate for some audiences.<\/em><\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12666″ title=”Veterans_Insets-sml-Belen” alt=”UCF Veteran – Jose Belen” position=”left” width=”300px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Specialist Jose Belen
\nU.S. Army
\nServed: 3 years
\nWar: Iraq<\/span><\/h2>\n

[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

On His First Experience in Iraq<\/strong>
\n\u201cI remember as clear as day crossing over [from Kuwait to Iraq] and chief giving the order, \u2018Lock and load that .50-caliber machine gun.\u2019 No safety on it. And I just remember, immediately, a gang of kids running over toward our vehicles, and the order was if they were armed or posed a threat, I had to kill them. That was the grim reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Good Memories<\/strong>
\n\u201cThere were some good times because we did really try to help the people and reconstruct neighborhoods and things of that nature. There would be times that we would get bags of candy or care packages from home and instead of keeping them for ourselves, we\u2019d distribute them to the children. I remember we got some soccer balls and gave them to the kids. Those were the positive memories. We cared. I cared for those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Losing His Best Friend<\/strong>
\n\u201cOn December 22, 2003, we got hit with an IED, and it took the life of my best friend Stuart Moore as well as our lieutenant, Matthew Saltz. That\u2019s a story that\u2019s taken me years to tell without getting emotional, but now I am able to look back on it and say as long as we are able to keep these memories of these guys alive, then they didn\u2019t die in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Fighting<\/strong>
\n\u201cThere\u2019s something that happens out in the battlefield, it\u2019s kind of primal. A warrior spirit gets awoken, and if you\u2019re given that, then you have no fear of combat.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Talking to Family While at War<\/strong>
\n\u201cI purposely didn\u2019t call home sometimes because of all the stuff I was engaged in. I would lie to my mom, and that was hard. I\u2019d be just finished coming back from some crazy op or ambush, sitting there covered in blood, all messed up, and she\u2019d ask how I\u2019m doing. \u2018I\u2019m fine.\u2019 \u2018Did you see combat?\u2019 \u2018No, I\u2019m in an office.\u2019 I kind of shied away from calling home a lot because where I\u2019m at, they have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Coming Home<\/strong>
\n\u201cThere was nothing left, man. I was a shell of who I was before. I\u2019ve battled suicide because of PTSD the entire time [I\u2019ve been back]. People need to realize that we have the war that we fight over there, but we have an internal fight, a mental one essentially when we come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Life After the Military<\/strong>
\n\u201cI\u2019ve given my life to speaking, to bringing awareness to PTSD, to hopefully bringing the suicide numbers down to zero one day. If no one speaks up on a major scale, no one is going to hear us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12669″ title=”Veterans_Insets-sml-Hernandez” alt=”UCF Veteran – Martha (Sue Hernandez Noe) Blair” position=”left” width=”300px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Yeoman Martha (Sue Hernandez Noe) Blair
\nU.S. Navy
\nServed: 16 years
\nWar: Vietnam<\/h3>\n

[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

On Why She Enlisted in the Navy<\/strong>
\n\u201cThere was no real conscious thought about enlisting \u2014 I just did it. I really wanted to go into the Marine Corps, but I didn\u2019t like their cover [a military term for hat] and I looked terrible in green, so I joined the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Expectations<\/strong>
\n\u201cI wanted to learn something that was outside of what I grew up with. I had never been outside of the state of Texas. Going from there to boot camp to my first command \u2014 airplanes, helicopters, jets, men, noise, bombs \u2014 it was a learning experience. And I embraced it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Training<\/strong>
\n\u201cMy first week, we had to learn about marching, how to dress, how to fold our clothes, make the beds, all the little important things. The big thing they wanted was to break us down. They wanted us to learn to work with everyone as a team, to depend on each other, and to learn to speak military and understand military. That first week was very intense.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Being Among the First Women\u00a0in the Military<\/strong>
\n\u201cIt was hard, very hard. The men did not want us there. I\u2019m not saying they were abusive \u2014 they weren\u2019t. Once they realized we were good guys, and that we could not only take it but dish it out, the relationships with the men in my unit improved and we became very good friends. But it was a rough haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Being Pregnant in the Military<\/strong>
\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t have maternity uniforms for my first child, and they didn\u2019t really know what to do with us. You had 30 days from the day you had the baby to be back at work, in uniform, at weight. We couldn\u2019t let being pregnant interfere with what we did, our jobs. I was at work for all three of my children when I went into labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Returning Home for the First Time<\/strong>
\n\u201cI was afraid to get up and get something to drink without permission. For eight weeks, I had someone telling me what to do every second, and now I didn\u2019t. Being home seemed foreign. All of a sudden, my brother didn\u2019t understand me. My friends thought I was a little strange. That was an adjustment for me, realizing we weren\u2019t the same anymore. I had changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Her Son Entering the Military<\/strong>
\n\u201cMy oldest son was in the Marine Corps. When he joined, I was like, \u2018OK, bye, see ya!\u2019 My second child went to a civilian college, and I was a snot-nosed mess. The Marine Corps I understood. College I didn\u2019t, and that was traumatic for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Breaking the Concrete Ceiling<\/strong>
\n\u201cThere are still glass ceilings, but they\u2019re easier to break. That\u2019s why they\u2019re called glass ceilings. We hit the concrete, and it wasn\u2019t easy to break, but many of us managed to put a lot of cracks in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12668″ title=”Veterans_Insets-sml-Glasgow” alt=”UCF Veteran – Robert Glasgow” position=”left” width=”300px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Corporal Robert Glasgow
\nU.S. Marine Corps
\nServed: 4 years
\nWar: Iraq<\/h3>\n

[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

On Drill Instructors<\/strong>
\n\u201cThey were the first and last men I will ever fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 11<\/strong>
\n\u201cSergeant came out and said the two towers were taken out. I used to live in New York. I thought it was a joke. Later that night, they showed us a video of the twin towers and a plane slamming into them one after the other. They said, \u2018This is why we\u2019re going to war. Oorah.\u2019 Everyone was like, \u2018Oorah.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Shit. We\u2019re going to war.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

On a Typical Day<\/strong>
\n\u201cSleep, get up, get your gear, have breakfast, look around, change out the watches, look at people, try to win hearts and minds even though we knew we weren\u2019t doing anything good, and occasionally get shot at, wait for bigger orders or something else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Most Memorable Day in Iraq<\/strong>
\n\u201cA day that was particularly memorable was the third day on the assault on Fallujah. We had tanks on point flanking light armored reconnaissance (LAR) assets, a platoon of tracks [tanks], and three platoons of infantry Marines on the ground. Weapons platoon (my guys) were scattered throughout the platoons and tracks as well. We ran into the middle of their defense, and they stopped all of us dead cold. RPG after RPG. Machine guns\u2019 fire everywhere. Marines were dropping. Every new turn we did, less Marines were there to confront them. We were taking on casualties. It was a chaotic mess. The tanks were just searching, traversing, alpha striking everywhere \u2014 an alpha strike is when they\u2019re using all their weapons at once. [The tanks] were making Swiss cheese out of their houses, but it didn\u2019t make\u00a0a dent in the enemy. It got so bad that RPGs were getting stuck under smokestacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Aftermath of Battle<\/strong>
\n\u201cThose moments of quiet are what got me. Some guys it didn\u2019t even affect. Some guys are just the epitome of a war fighter. I was more sensitive, but still proud to serve next to them and be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Significant Lesson Learned<\/strong>
\n\u201cWhen going through hell, just keep going. Keep moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Medals<\/strong>
\n\u201cThe Marine Corps doesn\u2019t do that unless you\u2019re a god.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Adjusting to Civilian Life<\/strong>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a horrible transition. I didn\u2019t know the VA existed. \u2026 I thank my lucky stars my uncle and my family were strong and were able to get me connected. I don\u2019t know where I\u2019d be without them right now, actually. I eventually went to a program where they said they would get me tools to help me handle who I was, but really it was just a guise to get numbers and put me on a bunch of medications, and say, \u2018Here, you\u2019re healed.\u2019 I didn\u2019t want that. I wanted to actually deal with who I was, not lose who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12670″ title=”Veterans_Insets-sml-Kahn” alt=”UCF Veteran – William Kahn” position=”left” width=”300px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Corporal William Kahn
\nU.S. Army
\nServed: 2 years
\nWar: World War II<\/h3>\n

[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

On Speaking Multiple Languages<\/strong>
\n\u201cI speak about three and a half languages. I speak English, German, Spanish and a little bit of Polish, what my dad taught me. I\u2019d call that the half.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Being Drafted<\/strong>
\n\u201cI was studying pre-medicine in college, and I wanted to finish my year out before I had to go, but they had a different idea. \u2026 In 1943, I went into the military, and they sent me to an anti-aircraft artillery battalion in Fort Bliss, Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Battle of the Bulge<\/strong>
\n\u201c[That was my] first battle. Everything was very quiet for a couple days\u00a0because we were blanketed with fog, and that\u2019s the reason why we were initially losing the Battle of the Bulge \u2014 because of the fog. We were closed in. We couldn\u2019t get any reinforcements. We couldn\u2019t get any supplies. We couldn\u2019t get any ammunition because the planes couldn\u2019t fly. And the Germans had outnumbered us 2-to-1. We were completely surrounded. We went to bed that night, and everything was quiet. So quiet, you wouldn\u2019t realize a war was going on. Then about 5:30 in the morning it sounded like all hell was breaking loose. We had to quickly get dressed, run out, and get our weapons. We knew that we were being attacked. I was captured shortly after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Being a Prisoner of War<\/strong>
\n\u201cWe marched 513 miles. It took us five months of marching, on the road every day, just as far as we could go. Wherever we got, we looked for a decent place to lay down. If we couldn\u2019t find a place, we slept on the snow and the ice. … I gained favor with the guards by knowing German.\u201d<\/p>\n

On What They Were Fed<\/strong>
\n\u201cMostly, [the Germans] gave us a loaf of bread to divide between 15 and 20 people. If we would get one a day, we were fortunate, but usually we\u2019d get about three loaves a week. And we got some soup, which we called grass soup. It was just water with grass thrown in and boiled, and bugs crawled on top of it. We had to spit them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

On How He Escaped<\/strong>
\n\u201c[We escaped when the Russians attacked us near the Czechoslovakian border. My partner, George, and I managed to get away from them.] \u2026 We\u2019d hide in the ditches most of the day. And one time, both of us were down in a ditch and we heard some tanks coming. We saw the star on it, and we knew it was our tank. We jumped out on the street and waved. We told [the guy in head of the tanks] that we were escaped prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Life After the War<\/strong>
\n\u201cI ran a gasoline service station and returned to college, where I met my wife. We went to Elmhurst College and met in a chemistry class.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12667″ title=”Veterans_Insets-sml-Gillooly” alt=”UCF Veteran – John Gillooly” position=”left” width=”300px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Captain John Gillooly
\nU.S. Navy
\nServed: 30 years
\nWar: World War II<\/h3>\n

[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n

On Arriving in the Pacific<\/strong>
\n\u201cIt was much harder than I thought it would be. There was much to learn. Although I had been trained technically at the Naval Academy, I had all this to learn about a ship at sea and life at sea and a crew, and you had to learn it in a hurry because we were under fire the better part of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Battle of Surigao Strait<\/strong>
\n\u201cI was on the USS Columbia<\/em>, a light cruiser in the South Pacific. The night after we had put the troops to shore, the Japanese came up through Surigao Strait to begin what would be the last great surface battle of all time. \u2026 It was like the Fourth of July, that night battle. We\u2019re firing. We have 6-inch guns and 5-inch guns, and I\u2019m on sound-powered phones in the middle of this. The whole thing is frightening. It\u2019s also a wonder to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On First Seeing a Kamikaze<\/strong>
\n\u201cWe were in a circular formation in Leyte Gulf. It was about dusk, and all of a sudden, we\u2019re under attack from 25 Japanese aircraft. \u2026 I\u2019m in a full air control position, so I have wide vision and I can see what\u2019s happening. I see them. Four of them break off and dive directly down on the cruiser opposite us, the St. Louis<\/em>, in a formation. Two\u00a0of them just miss her, and two of them hit her. That\u2019s the first time I realized what we were up against because we had no chance. There was no way. We didn\u2019t have guns fast enough to stop that, so if they were going to hit us, they were going to hit us. We lost many, many people; one of them was my classmate.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Hiroshima and Nagasaki<\/strong>
\n\u201cWe were prepared, and we had been briefed for the invasion of Japan. We knew we were gonna be in great danger. Unbeknownst to us, we came back for one of those night sweeps, and the next morning it was announced that the first bomb had been dropped. We had no knowledge of that. It was unexpected. Then, the next bomb was dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n

On V-J Day<\/strong>
\n\u201cI celebrated V-J Day in the harbor in Okinawa with a couple of friends of mine. We had a couple of guys who knew how to find medicinal alcohol, so we had a great celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

After WWII<\/strong>
\n\u201cI came back on the Columbia and stayed on her, and decided I never wanted to go to war again unless I was flying an air craft, so I put in for flight training. After some months, I finally got ordered to flight training. That was another whole chapter in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Learning to Fly<\/strong>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a young man\u2019s game to learn to fly. I was older, and I had already had some experience with my life, so it was pretty difficult for me to go through flight training.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[photo id=”12665″ title=”Veterans_Insets-lrg” alt=”UCF Veteran at the Florida National Cemetery” width=”100%”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

A veteran stops by one of the graves in the Florida National Cemetery, located in Bushnell. (Photo courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel)

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Finding Their Stories\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On July 19, 1918, Alexander Miguel Roberts was flying over Belgium as part of what was then called the Army Air Corps, when he found himself in a dogfight. He was outnumbered 3-to-1, but managed to strike down one of the enemy planes before his plane was shot down.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy plane descended and when it struck earth, I was inside the German lines and was made a prisoner,\u201d said Roberts in an article that ran in his hometown newspaper a month after the attack.<\/p>\n

His capture and release nearly a year later made Roberts an aviation legend. He would go on to appear in air shows, compete in cross-country races and serve in World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped generate enthusiasm for the birth of aviation in America,\u201d writes UCF history major<\/a> Alexander Zimmerman in a biography on the lieutenant colonel who died on July 23, 1988, and is one of the nearly 130,000 veterans buried in the Florida National Cemetery.<\/p>\n

The paper was researched and written as part of the Veterans Legacy Program<\/a>. Created by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA), an agency of the Department of Veterans Affair , the project works to share the stories of deceased veterans with a broad audience. UCF was one of only three universities selected to launch the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cUCF\u2019s history department was in a unique position to compete for this VA contract because we are dedicated to public engagement,\u201d says Amelia Lyons, an associate professor of history who leads the project at UCF and has been working with students such as Zimmerman. \u201cThe National Cemetery Administration runs 135 cemeteries in the U.S., and one of the largest is the Florida National Cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the goal for this program is related to UCF\u2019s Community Veterans History Project, in that both aim to share veterans\u2019 stories, the work students and faculty are doing to tell those stories is different. For starters, students in the Veterans Legacy Program must do significant\u00a0research to learn more about the people listed on tombstones and grave markers. To do so, they rely on primary sources like draft registration cards, local newspapers and family members, so they can write robust biographies about each individual, such as Roberts.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s focus is also different in its goal to make this research available to K\u201312 schools. Part of that includes educational tours of the cemetery, such as the one conducted in May for seventh-graders from Davenport School of the Arts. UCF students, faculty and staff taught them about individual veterans, the VA and NCA. There is also a website for educators to use in the classroom, and an app, which cemetery visitors can use by scanning a tombstone to read about an individual veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we went out to the cemetery, we saw this ocean of white markers. Each one is a person who fought for our country, but all we see is stones,\u201d says Zimmerman, whose grandfather was a high-ranking officer in the Flying Tigers, uncle flew helicopters in Vietnam and brother fought during the Iraq War. \u201cBut then you find out the story behind each stone. Now that\u2019s a person who was willing to give up his or her entire life so that we can have the life we have. It just makes it so much more impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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