Kirkwood students record veterans’ stories to preserve history

CEDAR RAPIDS — Student volunteers from Kirkwood Community College spent the day Friday recording oral histories of veterans from the Cedar Rapids area as part of an annual event hosted by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office.

“It’s a blessing because it’s like a testimony,” said 44-year-old student Marvin Johnson. “For people that are thinking about going over there, it could be encouragement. For people that don’t want to go over there, it could be an eye opener.”

The event is part of the national Veterans History Project, which preserves audio and video recordings of veterans telling their stories, as well as other items, like letters, diaries, artwork and photographs. The project is housed in the Library of Congress.

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Since 2018, Grassley’s office has hosted an annual event where veterans in Iowa towns are interviewed for the project. Previous events have been hosted in Johnston, Marshalltown, Waverly, Sioux City, Waterloo and at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum.

“As a history enthusiast and U.S. senator, I wanted to help preserve the stories of Iowa’s brave heroes who have served in the U.S. armed forces … Listening to the voices of veterans sharing firsthand accounts of their military service and experiences during wartime is powerful testimony,” Grassley said in a news release about the event.

Jim Felker, of Hiawatha, was a marine during the Vietnam War. He was wounded in battle and lost a close friend, whose name he read during the 35th anniversary ceremony of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 2017.

A friend of Felker’s who knew someone in Grassley’s office recommended him for the Veterans History Project event. He was one of 12 veterans the students interviewed Friday.

“It took me by surprise … It’s just kind of wild that myself as well as other stories will be part of the record. That really was a good feeling,” Felker said.

Most of the students who participated Friday are volunteers from Kirkwood Student Productions, a student organization that focuses on broadcast television production.

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One student, Aubrey Branch, 25, is not a production student, but volunteered for the project through Kirkwood Veteran Affairs. He said the experience was especially poignant for him because he’s currently serving in the Army National Guard. Hearing stories from seasoned veterans had him thinking about his own potential future deployments.

“It pulled some heartstrings because I’m thinking, whoa, this is what I could walk into. That also could happen to me, or somebody I know,” Branch said.

The students said the experience was an emotional one, and they won’t soon forget it.

“It’s interesting hearing these stories because they’re not normally covered, or you don’t hear about a lot of the things that they talk about. Obviously, it’s hard for them to even talk about it,” said Aris Perez, a 25-year-old volunteer at Friday’s event.

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“It’s hard to hear it, knowing that they were our age or younger when they went through it,” added another student, 22-year-old Jayden Yirkovsky. “I could never picture dealing with half the stuff that they went through, or experiencing half the stuff that they’ve experienced.”

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