Calling All Veterans

SLDN received a note today from Steve Estes at Sonoma State University, regarding the Veterans History Project.

We're passing that along with the hope that LGBT veterans will sign up to participate in the project -- a great way to make a lasting record of LGBT service to our country.

Here is Steve's message:

In 2000, the Library of Congress launched the Veterans History Project
(VHP), one of the most ambitious volunteer oral history projects this
country has ever seen. To date, the VHP has collected more than 10,000
personal narratives of veterans who served from World War I to the Gulf
War. Advocacy groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and American
Veterans for Equal Rights saw potential in the VHP to document the
impressive military careers of gay and lesbian veterans, who have long
been denied official recognition in other forums.

Along with the other interviewers for this project, I recognize that
the silence about gays in the military has led to a collective amnesia
about the patriotic service and courageous sacrifices of homosexual
troops. If Americans forget that gay and lesbian citizens have served
their country, then the nation is much less likely to view gays and
lesbians as full citizens, deserving of civil rights and equal
protection of the law. Oral history provides one way to break this
silence, to “ask and tell” about the military careers of gay and
lesbian soldiers and to allow these veterans to speak for themselves
about the current military policy.

If you were in the military during a US conflict overseas and would like
to be interviewed for this project, contact someone in your local
chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights or myself. Thanks for your
service to this country. Keep up the good fight.

Steve Estes
Assistant Professor of History
Sonoma State University
steve.estes@sonoma.edu

-Steve Ralls