The Library of Congress Veterans History Project at IRCC

by: LaVerne Coseo

With the efforts of a couple of our resident Veterans and the support of the IRCC Board of Directors The Library of Congress Veterans History Project here at IRCC was developed. The IRCC Veterans History Project Chair is LaVerne Coseo. Along with LaVerne a number of IRCC residents, trained by a member of the Library of Congress VHP staff are performing veteran history interviews.

Those residents who generously give of their time are Kathy Barclay, Bill Corbett, Patricia Corr, Kirby Lawson, Elaine Logan, Teresa Ortiz, and Gloria Zannis. Along with the interviewers we are grateful to have George Cusimano as our Board liaison and Duke Bickmore, AVSS who provides us with all of the recordings via thumb drives, along with great technical support.

The interviews are recorded on videotape and are submitted to the Library of Congress VHP where they are archived for future viewing via their website www.loc.gov/vets. The participating veterans also receive their own commemorative copy to share with their family and friends. This program is a wonderful way for our U.S. military veterans to tell their story and preserve their legacy.

As this is a historical effort that will perpetuate the legacy of our IRCC veterans, we need all veterans regardless of their rank, time served, reserve/regular, combat/non-combat support role or career accomplishments. Please keep this effort moving forward so that our veterans’ stories will not be lost as the ones before this project started. As of August 2019, we have interviewed approximately 60 veterans and have several who will be interviewing in September. There are so many more of you out there. If you are a veteran that resides in IRCC, and have not taken advantage of this great project, please contact one of our volunteers listed above so that you can tell your story.

Photo: (L to R) Pat Corr-Interviewer, Bill Corbett-Interviewer, LaVerne Coseo-Chair & Interviewer, Kirby Lawson-Interviewer, Elaine Logan-Interviewer, George Cusimano-IRCC Board Liaison, Gloria Zannis-Interviewer. Absent from the photo are Kathy Barclay-Interviewer, Teresa Ortiz-Interviewer, Duke Bickmore-AVSS. Photo by Amir Pishdad, Jr.