The Power of Storytelling to Honor Veteran Legacies

Preserving family history is a gift to future generations. Anyone who has pored through their grandparents’ photo albums, recipe cards, or drawers full of vintage clothing gets to feel connected to a past that is a part of their story. For families of veterans, this takes on additional significance: they get to feel connected to heroism, service, and significant events in human history.

Memory-keeping is an important part of celebrating our veterans. This Veterans Day, consider ways you can honor your loved one’s legacy of service through preserving and sharing their story.

Veteran Stories Remind Us of Who We Are

Over the years, Veterans Home Care has interviewed many of our hero clients, their surviving spouses, and their adult children. (For examples, read Minnie’s story, Antoine’s, or Harry’s.) A common refrain is that the veteran struggled to tell their story after they left active duty. This can stem from the intense and complex feelings around experiences, particularly in combat zones. PTSD is tragically widespread among veterans, and families are often under-resourced in how to help their loved one process their experiences. Vietnam veterans underwent particularly difficult transitions back to civilian life, and many still struggle with those memories.

Storytelling is not a substitute for mental healthcare, but it is often part of accepting, learning, and moving forward. For families, storytelling can reveal sides of their loved one they have not otherwise witnessed. The immense courage, resilience, self-discipline, and wisdom of veterans is worth more than they know to those close to them, and they can provide grounding examples to their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and generations beyond. Those qualities build a better world; we need veteran stories.

Preserving Stories and Lessons

Some veterans (or their surviving spouses) are happy to be invited to share their stories. Collecting an oral history is a great way to record their memories. This may be accomplished with video, audio, or written media and makes a priceless heirloom for future generations who will better know where they came from.

Veterans Home Care interviews our veteran clients and their surviving spouses on an ongoing basis for our blog. If your loved one would like to participate and share their story with others, you can fill out this contact form.

Some veterans who are comfortable speaking publicly can also find local organizations eager to offer a platform; they speak to students, fellow veterans, active duty personnel, and even employers interested in hiring more veterans. These kinds of opportunities can be found through your city government (including the chamber of commerce), local schools, veteran organizations (like the American Legion, AMVETS, VFW, and others), or the Wounded Warrior Project.

Other veterans prefer to write those stories down. Veteran memoirs are treasures that can even be printed or published to share outside the family. At minimum, they become strong, personal ties to honored predecessors.

Lastly, the Library of Congress collects firsthand accounts from veterans in its Veterans History Project, where your loved one’s story becomes part of our nation’s preserved historical record. They also collect any artifacts veteran families would like to donate. This is a wonderful project to browse, even if your loved one is not ready to participate.

Veteran Tributes Beyond Stories

Families can honor their veterans through other ways that preserve their legacy and keep their memories alive for younger generations. Crafts and artwork are a great outlet for those who might not remember or be comfortable sharing many stories. Some ideas are:

• Scrapbooking with photos, news cuttings, letters, and official documents (be sure not to alter or damage anything that might be needed for VA services; sometimes a photocopy is a good idea). Your loved one’s possessions can also be supplemented with public material (like articles) from the time period as a way to tell a fuller story to younger family members.
• Preserving uniforms, patches, medals, name tags, and other artifacts in frames or shadowboxes. Get these out of the attic, and make sure they are displayed proudly and admired often!
• Framing a map marked with all stations and dates during service. This can be expanded to include anecdotes or significant events, like the birth of a child on-base.
• Making a time capsule for the years during which they served. It can include many of the objects mentioned above, as well as notes and recordings. Some veterans might even have saved foreign currency that is no longer used, matchbooks, and similar items that would be delightful to find a decade from now!
• Quilting with t-shirts, blankets, buttons, or other retained objects from service.

Veterans who served more recently may find that they have more digital artifacts, such as photos. Printing digital media is a great way to keep it in view, rather than tucked away in computer or phone files.

Does your loved one know about Honor Flights? Vietnam Veteran Steve can attest to his initial hesitation, but he and his fellow veterans flying together that day in 2023 count it as a meaningful, fun experience that revived some of that military pride and camaraderie.

And consider that beyond Veterans Day, we also mark Women Veterans Day, Vietnam Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, Military Spouse Appreciation Day, and other specially designated holidays that remind us of the sacrifices these heroes have made to protect and serve our country. Putting these holidays on your calendar can be a good prompt to reach out to veterans in your circle, thank them, and invite them to share their stories.

There are many ways to honor the veterans in our spheres. Consider how you can make their stories visible, advocate for their rights, and thank them through recognition of their service. We love and honor our veterans—not just once a year, but always!

If your loved one needs home care, our VetAssist mission is to make home care easily and quickly accessible for those who qualify through the VA Pension with Aid and Attendance benefit. Veterans Home Care can help you determine whether you or your loved one will be eligible to receive the benefit, which can cover some or all of the cost of home care, and we make it easy to apply. Chat with us via our website, or call us at (888) 314-6075.