In an April 17th press release, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project reported that it has teamed up with PBS and Ken Burns to promote a national effort to interview and record “first-hand recollections of the diverse men and women who served our nation during wartime”. The spark for this effort is Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary series on World War II, The War, scheduled to debut on September 23, 2007. The Veterans History Project has been collecting oral histories since 2000, and has currently gathered over 45,000 individual stories. They’ve now even created a “Field Kit” for oral history interviews, available online in pdf form. Perspectives associate editor David Darlington first reported on the Veterans History Project back in 2002. At that time the project had interviewed 2,500 veterans. To participate in this project and add a story to be “share[d] with current and future generations,” visit this page on the Library of Congress’s web site.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.