Jewells of Thought

When I sat down on the swing that day I was unsure how long I could take this interview. I was still new at this and each man was different. I think he asked me how we should start and I said simply start with your name and when you started your service.

Literally that was all I said for 35 minutes I asked one question and altogether it lasted for 45 minutes. My one question was about his rank. I simply listened to him spill out his memories. I can still remember that day in September it was like there was no one around but us. I don’t even know what Mom was doing or my brothers. Dad, Grandpa and my uncles were working and everything else didn’t matter.

Do you know how many pages 45 minutes translates into?

My copy of our interview has 8 pages, by far the longest of them all. What makes this interview special was that Uncle Tom sent me ‘Thank You’ cards from my ‘Thank You’ cards to him. I do have some ‘Thank You’s’ from others, but this one interview pierced me especially.

In college I got to speak to a professor of mine, one of my history professors. He was a retired Principal at that time teaching at OCU, Mr. Neighbors. I enjoyed his classes; one of them was a Government class we had in the Student Life Center. We were talking about Veterans and interviewing and I actually knew something about that and what questions to ask. He told us of talking to a Veteran, I believe a Vietnam soldier the conversation disturbed that man so much his nightmares came back in full force. My professor left us that day with the thought of could I bring someone back nightmares from my questions!

Honestly I don’t remember if that was before Uncle Tom’s interview or later. Yet those sentiments have followed me into each interview since. I have tried to be mindful of that class conversation. Even when I interviewed Grandma Betty. It’s something that is enhanced now with the Afghanistan withdrawal and the recent attack of our ally Israel.