History textbooks give the facts on war, but they’re no substitute for the experience.

That’s why a group of Brown County High School students has begun working with the Library of Congress to talk to the people who were there.

The first project of the new History Club will be recording and preserving interviews with local veterans. They have almost 30 signed up to participate.

Students will ask questions from a specific list provided by the Library of Congress and the interviews will then be submitted to the agency for online preservation.

“The history books give you the facts, but the interviews give the emotion — the fear the people felt, how they cried,” said senior Brittany Miller said, who plans to enlist in the Air Force.

“To know what they went through and what they experienced gives me a better appreciation for what I may end up going through, or helps me understand what they sacrificed to get me to where I am and my ability to be able to enlist,” she said.

Freshman Tanner Bowman started the club with the help of social studies teachers Alecia Adams and Emily Lewellen this school year.

It was a way to help carry over momentum from the eighth-grade We the People civics class. Four of the 20 club members are We the People alumni.

“We basically talk about history, understand history and learn to appreciate it,” Bowman said.

“It’s for those who appreciate it, care for it and want to keep it going. That’s the reason I created it.”

We the People was one reason freshman Delaney Hobbs joined the club.

“That was probably the best experience, education wise, I’ve had so far, so this is the most similar thing I think to it that we’ve gotten so far in high school because it’s a group of people who share a common interest,” she said.

Lewellen said club members thought about collecting oral histories of anyone involved with history, and then they discovered the Library of Congress project.

“How much cooler is that, that our kids can archive these living histories into the Library of Congress?” she said.

“I look at these faces and I think, ‘In 30, 40, 50 years, they’ll tell their children about WWII, or Korea, or Vietnam, and will be able to tell them from a secondhand perspective about what somebody had said firsthand,” Adams said.

The project also gives students a chance to speak with veterans in their own families.

Senior Azhia Morgan plans to interview her grandfather and her cousin.

“I don’t know exactly where he served — I have no clue — so that’s why I’m interviewing him,” she said of her grandfather.

Bowman said it is important to get stories from veterans before they are gone. He said his grandfather served two tours in Korea and was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service, but never spoke about it.

“We never knew that until after he died (when) we found some newspaper clippings, that he had been pinned down under enemy fire for over four hours and was one of four men out of 600 to come back from his unit,” he said.

“I would like for veterans to be more comfortable talking to us, and be more comfortable talking to their families about their stories because once they’re gone, they’re gone. We lose those stories.”

Students who don’t have veterans in their families are especially excited to participate, like seniors Maddy Edds and Dawson Dunnuck.

“It’s good to hear from other people, because part of me would like to hear something like that from my grandfather,” Edds said.

“I feel like that would just be like a great thing in my life to have that person tell me what they went through, to be able to give all of these men and women who served the opportunity to tell. Sometimes you do have people who don’t want to say anything, but then you have someone who will just tell you everything and give you the hard truth.”

Hobbs said she knows it’s difficult for some veterans to share their stories because the memories are painful.

“When you come home and everyone expects you to act like normal, like you didn’t see someone die and you didn’t almost get killed yourself, you’re expected to act a certain way and pretend none of it happened. That’s when people shut in on themselves and they can’t speak about it,” Miller added.

Dunnuck said he hopes speaking with someone who doesn’t know them or their story will make the veterans more comfortable.

“When they’re with a stranger, they may take that mask off and show who they really are,” he said.

Their teachers are happy to see their students playing an active role in preserving local history.

“As a history teacher, it’s important for our students to hear those stories. Otherwise, it seems like history is just something that’s not very relatable, and it’s something they don’t think they need to know because ‘Oh, that’s never going to happen to me,’” Lewellen said.

“But if they hear those stories, then they realize these are just normal people who may or may not have been the same age of some of these kids in high school, It’s really impactful that way.”

Adams said this project will also help set students apart as they apply to colleges.

“Maybe we’ll create some activists who will go and who will fight for these veterans’ rights in the future and try to preserve and take care of that generation,” Lewellen added.

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Are you a veteran who wants to share your war story to be preserved by the Library of Congress?

Do you know someone who has a story to share?

Calling Brown County High School at 812-988-6606 and leave your contact information. A History Club member will get in touch with you to set up an interview time.

Interviews will be scheduled around what works best for the veteran, History Club co-sponsor Emily Lewellen said. Students can meet after school and on the weekends, too.

Interviews are expected to begin after the holiday season. There is no deadline for collecting stories, co-sponsor Alecia Adams said.

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