Marine Somalia Veterans Association Member Interviews for participation in the GVSU Veterans History Project
1. Find someone to interview—relative, neighbor, family friend, etc—who is willing to be interviewed and have the interview archived and made available to researchers. They don’t have to be a member of Marine Somalia Veterans Association (MSVA) or a Marine. While the focus of the MSVA will be Marine Somalia veterans, the project encompasses all veterans.
2. Do some homework—get some information in advance regarding what branch of the service and what unit the veteran served with, when he/she served, where he/she went, etc., and look up some basic background on the unit, campaign, etc. This will help you to understand what they talk about and to recognize some of the places and events they refer to.
3. Paperwork: In order to archive your interview, we will need you to complete three of the forms from the Library of Congress project field kit, which you can find on their website, www.loc.gov/vets. Specifically, you need the biographical information form, the veteran’s release form, and the interviewer’s release form.
- Bio form: You can fill some of this out in advance with whatever information you already have. You can add some of the specifics while talking to the veteran before actually starting the interview. This will help you to learn more about the veteran’s story and to know specific things to ask about during the interview. You can also add information after the interview. Be sure to include the interviewers’ names on this form. This makes our job much easier later on.
- Veteran’s release form: The veteran must sign and date the form. You can fill in the rest for them. Without this release, we can’t show the interview to anyone. Basically what the form does is that it lets the Library of Congress and its designees, in this case the GVSU Veterans History Project, make the interview available for people to view, along with any other materials that they give you or let you make copies of for that veteran’s individual file.
- Interviewer’s release form: Please fill out a separate form for each person conducting an interview. Interviewers under the age of 18 need to have a parent or guardian sign the form for them.
4. Pre-interview: Before starting the interview, talk to the veteran and look over any pictures, documents or other materials that the veteran has from his/her time in the service. This will help you to get acquainted and learn more about their stories before starting the interview. Just be careful that they don’t tell you their whole story before you turn the camera on. You don’t want to wear them out before you start recording. If it’s convenient, you can do this prior to the date of the actual interview. Otherwise, just do it on the date of the interview before you record it. If you are able to conduce a separate pre-interview session before the date of the interview, or if you have the veteran’s completed biographical information form in advance of the interview, try to do some background research on the unit the veteran served with, and/or on the battles or campaigns that he or she participated in or witnessed aspects of. This will enable you to ask more specific questions, and will tell the veteran that you are taking the job seriously. There is a good deal of information available online for individual army and Marine divisions and regiments, air force units and naval ships, so if you have some basic basic background information, you can often get a good idea of where veterans went and what they did before conducting the interview.
5.Recording and setup:
- If at all possible, record the interview on video. We will take audio recordings, but camcorders are pretty cheap these days, and even cheap ones will work to create something that we can archive, and being able to see the veteran talking adds a lot to the impact of the interview.
- Any video format is OK but MP4 is preferred.
- Choose a place to interview the veteran where there is not much background noise or activity. Don’t have the veteran in front of or right next to a window, since this makes the rest of the image very dark.
- If the interviewee wears glasses and needs them to see you while you are talking, try to avoid having too much glare off of the glasses. If they are comfortable without their glasses, then they can just take them off if there is a glare issue.
- Set up the camera pretty close to the interviewee, preferably not more than six feet away. The interviewee’s face should be at the center of the shot, or slightly above center. You basically just want the head and shoulders. Being this close helps to give good resolution on the face itself, and helps to make sure that the camera’s microphone picks up what the interviewee says, even when he/she speaks quietly.
- The interviewer should be next to the camera, not in the shot. The interviewer should speak fairly loudly so that the microphone will pick up the questions, and so that veterans with hearing problems will understand the questions better.
6. The interview:
- Have a basic set of prepared questions to work from, but be prepared to deviate from the plan to ask followup questions when the veteran skips over things too quickly or says something interesting that you’d like to know more about.
- Start by asking about the veteran’s background, especially where and when they were born, what their family did, where they went to school, and what they were doing before joining the military. This helps to get them comfortable and makes it easier for you to then follow them through their military careers.
- At least to start with, follow the timeline and keep the interview in chronological order. You may get away from this at times, or want to go back after getting to the end of the story to ask followup questions, but keeping things in order tends to make the interview easier to follow and to use later.
- If the interviewee does not want to talk about something, or gets upset when remembering bad experiences, either change the subject and move on, or give them a chance to pull together. Be aware that most veterans will leave things out of their stories, and that we have to let them do that. Whatever information they give us is more than what we had to start with.
- Toward the end of the interview, ask the veteran what he/she did after getting out of the service. This tends to help close out the interview and put the person’s military experience into some sort of perspective.
- There is no standard length for these interviews. Sometimes a veteran will only talk for a few minutes. Others can go on for two hours or more. The majority of the interviews that our more experienced interviewers conduct last between about 40 and 80 minutes. When making your interview appointment, you should plan on being there for at least two hours, especially if you need to do the pre-interview as part of the appointment. If necessary, you can always return to re-interview someone to get the rest of their story, at least as long as they are willing and able to talk with you again.
- Some veterans have photographs or documents that they are willing to let us archive. If they wish to keep the originals, the best thing for you to do is to scan them to create pdf files that we can archive, although legible photocopies are OK. If you are including such materials for your interview, be sure to fill out the photo log and/or manuscript log from the Field Kit located on the Library of Congress website. If they are willing to donate original materials, we will take care of any additional paperwork needed for archiving purposes.
7. Archiving: Once the interview is completed, the interview and completed forms must be provided to the GVSU Veterans History Project (specifically to Dr. James Smither, Dept. of History, D-1-230 Mackinac Hall, GVSU, Allendale, MI 49401). At GVSU, they will make DVD copies of the interview, archiving one at our library, and sending one directly to each veteran interviewed. We will return the original interviews to the school, but if you or the school want copies as well, we can arrange that. In GVSU’s archive, each interview will be accompanied by detailed notes for researchers to use, and the interviews themselves will be made available over streaming video on the internet at GVSU’s website. We also send a copy of each interview to the Library of Congress for its database.
8. If you have any questions about the project or the interview process, please use our contact form.
Sample Interview Questions
Sample Questions #1
Personal info
Name and birthdate
Childhood
Their families
Their education
Their job
Military Service
Why they joined/influences to join
Where they trained and what company they were in
Where the subject traveled to and how they got there
Campaigns/activities/deployments the subject was involved with
Daily life, living/working conditions
Discharge, why they left the service
Post Service
Adjusting to home
Differences between civilian life and military life
Military involvement after service
Photos/memorabilia from the service
Sample Questions #2
Biographical Details
Where were you born?
Who are/were your parents and what are/were their occupations?
Who are/were your siblings? Names and genders? Which, if any, serve/served in the military?
What were your parents’ or siblings’ feelings about you joining the service
What primary and secondary schools or college did you attend?
What kinds of jobs did you hold prior to entering the military?
Early Days of Service
Can you tell us about when you went into the military? Were you drafted, or did you
volunteer?
(If volunteered) Why did you join?
What or who did you leave behind (family, child, pet) when you left to serve?
In which branch did you enter?
(If volunteered) Why did you choose that branch?
How did you get to your initial point of entry?
What type of training or schooling did you have? (Advance Course Warrant Officer Basic, Warrant Officer Advance, Warrant Officer Senior Course, “Boot-strap” Command and General Staff College or equivalent, War College or equivalent (getting a degree either Bachelors, Masters or PhD).
What is your most vivid memory of your time training or in school? What was the best
part? What was the worst part?
Does any particular instructor stand out in your mind? If yes, why?
What was your first assignment after basic training?
Did you receive any specialized training? If so, what?
Do you recall your instructors? If so, what were they like?
Did you qualify with equipment (vehicles, aircraft, radios, weapons, etc.)?
(If Yes) What was training with that equipment like?
What was the hardest part of training?
Did you receive any promotions? Could you tell me about them?
What was the hardest part of the military life-style for you to adapt to? Why do you think it was?
What was the easiest part of the military life-style for you to adapt to? Why do you think it was?
Wartime Service (if applicable)
Where did you serve?
What are your recollections of that experience?
Were you in a combat, combat support, or combat service support role? Or did the war zone make that designation irrelevant?
(If combat/ wartime) How did your combat (wartime) experience change you?
What kinds of friendships and camaraderie did you form while serving, and with whom?
How did you stay in touch with family and friends?
What did you do for recreation or when you were off duty?
Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
Was there something you did for “good luck?”
What was the best part of your service experience?
End of Service
Do you recall the day service ended? Where were you when your service ended?
Did you return home? Where were you?
How were you received by your family and community?
How did you readjust to civilian life? Did you work or go back to school?
Did the G.I. Bill support your education?
How did service change you?
Did you continue any friendships after service? For how long?
How did service affect the way you relate to others?
Did you join a veteran organization?
Do you attend reunions?
Reflections
How did your military service experiences affect your life?
What are some life lessons you learned from your military service?
How has your military service impacted your feelings about war and the military in general?
What message would you like to leave for future generations who will view/hear this interview?
Conclusion
Thank the veteran for sharing their recollections of military service, and let them know you have few more questions before ending the recording.
Is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered in this interview?
Is there anything you’ve always wanted to share about your service or veteran experience that you never have?
What would you like people to know or remember from your story?
Is there anything else we should talk about that we haven’t covered?
What do you wish more people knew about veterans?
This list can also be found on the Library of Congress website here.
Marine Somalia Veterans Association 