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image003.gif (10730 bytes)Voices of Historyimage003.gif (10730 bytes)


Our Mission

The Voices of History started as the Voices of Warriors oral history project focused on those who fought or otherwise served the nation in World War II.    Our mission is to obtain first hand oral histories from these individuals before they are lost forever.  We are losing these individuals at over 1,000 per day, and the stories should be preserved using state-of-art videography and archiving techniques.


Organization Profile

VOH is a grassroots effort founded in Colorado.  It collects donations from individuals and organizations interested in recording our history and educating Americans about the sacrifices of what Tom Brokaw has termed "The Greatest Generation".  In essence, VOH is an "information technology" organization developing a database of information that gets more valuable with age.   The importance of maintaining first hand accounts cannot be stressed too highly; we don't want history to be "revised" after the loss of these true heroes to time.   Another component of the effort is to utilize these valuable accounts as an educational tool for all people, but especially students.  There is a "gap" in history for many Americans; those of whose who were alive during a particular event are often well aware of that event.  Most people over 50 years old well remember the daily reporting of the Vietnam War and associated war protests during the 1960's.   How does today's 15 year old view the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger? While most of us remember exactly where were and what we were doing, the 15 year old does not have this perspective.  VOH seeks to fill this "gap" using current technology and avoid any reinterpretation of actual events at a later time.

Irv.jpg (23381 bytes)Irv Obermeyer speaks to students on a regular basis about his experiences in a submarine in WWII.  Irv was in the submarine that snuck into Tokyo Bay early in the war and gathered intelligence on Japanese activities.  The movie "Run Silent, Run Deep" was based on the experience.run.jpg (11598 bytes)

There have been similar projects conducted by other organizations and individuals, but nothing on the scale of Voices of History.  We originally sought the stories of veterans from World War II, the Voices of Warriors, but realized the need to record stories of those who made the industrial effort surrounding the war possible, those who began the Space program, those who fought in Korea, etc. 

Steven Spielberg has been conducting a project to record Holocaust survivors, but it is only part of the story. The warriors who freed the surviving Holocaust victims, those who were victorious over Japan and the Axis powers, must also have their story told.

The vision of the Voices of Warriors history project is to build an interactive memorial for World War II. There are movements around Colorado and the country to build war memorials for this incredible event in history, but these are rarely interactive. We are seeking to build a system which can be used to educate people on the war, using the real people that participated and their stories. We will seek out and arrange for professional video or audio taping of these individuals using tried and true formats to encourage discussion. The records will be archived using state of the art techniques and other master recordings will be used to produce media for use on websites, classrooms, kiosks, or other events where the information will be of use.


Links:logo_new.gif (2950 bytes)

 

 

Veterans of Foreign Wars

Home of Heroes

B-25 Mitchell Bomber

The History Place

 

US Submarine Veterans of WWII Home Page

World War II aviation history

American Legion of Colorado

Rutgers University WWII Oral History Site

 

World War II US Veterans

United Veterans of Colorado

Doolittle Tokyo Raid

 

 

WWII Oral History Web Site

American Legion

The History Channel

 

 

 

 


Contact Information

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to volunteer or no of someone we should be interviewing for the project.

Telephone

(303) 692-1443

FAX

(303) 932-1085

Postal address

  VOW

            c/o R Scott

  7563 South Holland Street

            Littleton, Colorado   80128-5119

Electronic mail

General Information: Russ Scott
Technical Operations/Production: Nancy Thomas Ford
Webmaster: RScott@CyberDude.com