The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center

[JoeO]

I go to estate sales and I often see old military uniforms, souvenirs, photos, letters, and other materials from someone's time in WWII or Korea that no one in the family seems to want. Sometimes collectors snap up the souvenirs but often much of the ephemera is left behind, especially the photos. I fear much of it is lost to the dumpster.

The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is the Army's official central repository for historical source material. It is an archive and a library. It holds over 260,000 books, 50,000 periodicals, 11,000,000 manuscript pages, 1,730,000 photographs, and 47,500 artifacts covering every period of U.S. military history. Civilian and uniformed historians from all over the country and abroad go there to research and study of the history of the American armed forces. One of its missions is to preserve the stories of individual soldiers.

I'm posting this because AHEC is always looking to strengthen and improve their holdings - especially in the area of WWII - and they accept donations of personal military-related materials from veterans and their families. If your parent or grandparent was a soldier, and you have equipment, uniforms, souvenirs, diaries, correspondence, photos, or any materials related to his or her experiences, please consider donating the items to AHEC. They will catalogue and preserve them and make them available to the researchers, scholars, and students who use their collections.  Even if you want to keep originals, I believe they are interested in copies of things like diaries, correspondence, and firsthand accounts especially.

Additionally, they are currently actively looking to survey WWII survivors about their experiences. Time is of the essence. There is a several-page form they send out to any WWII veteran who gets in their data base. It's a pretty simple form. It might even be downloadable from the Web site.

They also accept nonpersonal items, such as rare out-of-print books written on the subject of U.S. wars. If you have something like that, you can check to see if they have it in their catalogue already.

I don't think many Americans know about the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. I just wanted to pass the word and the idea along. I'm an archivist at heart.

https://www.armyheritage.org/component/content/article/34-banner-content/107-army-heritage-and-education-center.html

[Le Poisson]

Thanks for posting. Last night we were talking about this. I  know my grandfather fought Mussolini, I know he rode a motorcycle, and at some point was a stretcher-bearer. Everything else is gone. We need to keep what we can, but especially the stories. The stories are what prevents the same mistakes from being repeated.

[MayDay]

My grandpa was drafted right at the end of WW2. He went through Basic, then to Ft. Knox, but never overseas as the war ended. He grew up poor and the Army was the best fed he had ever been! Plus shoes that fit!

His best story was that a commanding officer tossed him the keys of a jeep and told him to "pick up such and such and drive it to so and so". Gramps said Yes Sir, hopped in the (manual, of course) Jeep, and proceeded to crash it. He'd never driven a car before!  He didn't get in trouble, luckily :)