Veterans Remember

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Oral History program presents Veterans Remember:

“Public interest in the stories and recollections of our nation’s veterans is long-standing and enduring. Although our collection of veterans interviews is not as extensive as that of many institutions, our goal is to conduct in-depth interviews that examine the narrators’ early years as well as thoroughly address their military experiences.”

“This project is divided, naturally, into the nation’s wars, starting with World War II, through Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the War on Terrorism. We’ve also included the Cold War, for there are many veterans who never saw a battlefield yet still served honorably. Their stories, too, deserve to be heard and understood. Our current focus is on the Korean War, as that war is too often ignored, and very poorly understood. Our Korean War veterans deserve better, and fifty-plus years removed from the war, we are racing the clock. The same is even more true of the World War II generation, although yeoman’s work has already been done on that generation. This is all to explain why you will not find a lot on Vietnam and beyond. We will eventually turn our attention to these, but time and resources are very limited.”

“In many cases, a narrators’ experience is not limited to just one war. In that event, you will be able to access the interview through each of the wars in which they served.”

“Ken Jobe served as an engineer officer during the height of the Cold War, including the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He pulled a tour in peacetime Korean with the 44th Engineer Battalion, and served with B Company, 577th Engineer Battalion in Vietnam, seeing action along the often contested Route One, along the South China Sea.”

“I had the impression that what the South Vietnamese…really wanted to do was to be able to get up in the morning, do their job, grow rice, feed their family, observe the sun go down at the end of the day, do the same thing the next day. And they don’t care about the political system.”

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