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Combat to college: Oral history project focuses on student vets

Andrew Napier was at a bar with friends when one friend told the group that Napier had just returned from combat in Iraq. A woman in the group responded by saying, “Oh, is … that still going on?”

Napier, a UK biology student, told his bar story during an interview for the UK’s Nunn Center for Oral History on Jan. 28.  In the interview, Napier said that returning home after his service in Iraq made him feel “like nobody even realized that I was even gone.” The Nunn Center’s interest in hearing him tell his story made him feel differently.

“It’s awesome to hear that anybody even cares what’s happening, you know?” Napier said in his interview.

Napier’s interview is one of seven that have been made available online in video format as part of an ongoing project. The Nunn Center’s “From Combat to Kentucky” project gives veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan now attending UK a chance to record their military stories. During the interviews, which typically last about two hours, student-veterans talk about why they decided to go into the military, and describe their boot camp, deployment, and homecoming experiences.

The project fits into the Nunn Center’s history. The Center has been recording veteran stories since 1973 and has records from World War II, Korean and Vietnam veterans. “You aren’t instantly drawn when you are thinking about oral history to say, ‘Hey, we should interview a 23, 24-year old,’” said Doug Boyd, director of the Nunn Center, “but the advantage of getting their stories now is they are really fresh.”

Boyd said that although the project has historical importance, “There is also the social importance of giving these veterans a voice and connecting them to the outside world.”

Read the full story at the Kentucky Kernel.

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