Ron Kind: “I rise in strong support of this resolution before us this evening. The Veterans History Project, however, isn't new.…”

“I rise in strong support of this resolution before us this evening. The Veterans History Project, however, isn't new. It's been in existence for 10 years. We celebrated its 10-year anniversary just this year. Simply put, it's the last task of a grateful Nation to our veterans to ask them to help us preserve an important part of American history-- what it was like for them to serve our Nation during times of conflict and times of peace. And since the creation of the Veterans History Project, we have close to 80,000 veterans' stories that have been recorded, collected, and are now being archived in probably the best place in the entire world where it can and should be archived--out of our own Library of Congress here in Washington, D.C. The genesis of the Veterans History Project occurred over a Father's Day weekend back home in my city of La Crosse, Wisconsin. I was sitting around the picnic table with my father, who is a Korea generation veteran, Elroy, and his brother, my uncle, Don Kind, who was with a bomber crew in the Pacific during the Second World War, and they started sharing with me their experience in serving our Nation.”