GRAFTON - The director of the Veterans History Project has come to Grafton to contribute to the National Memorial of Military Ascent.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Dr. James Smither, a professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, recently stopped by Grafton to film oral histories of local veterans. These videos will then be archived with the Library of Congress and eventually shared in the National Memorial of Military Ascent (NMMA) museum.
“I’m basically here as kind of an in-house historian and somebody who could help do oral histories,” Smither explained. “The idea there is, if you’ve got a museum set up, museums need programming. It’s got to be things that engage the community, and an oral history program, especially in this area, which has so many veterans, that’s just kind of the natural thing. And for me, it gives me access to a group of veterans I wouldn’t meet otherwise.”
Over the course of his career, Smither has interviewed over 1,500 veterans, from World War II vets to service members in more recent conflicts. He records their stories and archives them with the Veterans History Project through the Library of Congress.
At 17%, Grafton is Illinois’s city with the largest percentage per capita of veterans. Since coming to Grafton, Smither has recorded six interviews with local veterans and hopes to do many more in the coming months.
All of these interviews will be archived. A few of them will likely be included in a documentary that is currently in the works to document the building of the NMMA. Others will be a part of the museum’s programming.
Grafton Mayor Mike Morrow, who also serves as the NMMA president, noted that the goal of the memorial is to honor the community, including the service members and their loved ones. He hopes Smither’s interviews help to bring the community together and show the connections between the memorial and the people.
“We say the hook is the monument. But everything else is worked around the veteran,” Morrow explained. “It’s also for the veterans’ families, the people who didn’t go overseas. It’s for the children and for their wives and so forth and husbands that lost service members. So this project with Dr. Smither is a way of tying that together with this community, because this community here is where this memorial is going to be, so we want to have as many veterans in this community be able to get their stories told.”
Warren Gohl, the NMMA chaplain, also noted that the memorial and the veterans’ stories will serve as a way to remember the past and look toward the future. He hopes to see many of these stories sustained through the memorial.
“If we don’t preserve the past, the lessons learned, the trust, the honor, the spirit and so forth, we’re diminished as a people and soon we’ll forget completely,” Gohl added. “We lose all our guideposts for life and the future. And so this is critical. The more I think about this memorial, this is just absolutely beautiful. I wish memorials were sprouting up everywhere. We must honor the past to protect the future.”
Smither echoed Morrow and Gohl. He pointed out that the goal of the memorial is to recognize all veterans, and he hopes the oral histories add a new layer.
“Part of the point of this memorial is, while it focuses on one event — the scaling of the cliffs in Point du Hoc — the idea is really to honor all American veterans. So this is sort of a natural way of showing that expansion,” Smither said. “It’s kind of a reminder that we’re all in this together. Whatever our political views, religious beliefs, whatever, we’re all Americans.”
For more information about the NMMA, visit the official website at GraftonMemorial.org.
More like this:
