I often hear people say that the Veteran in their family doesn't talk about their service.
Having interviewed many Veterans over the decades, including combat Veterans, I'll never
forget what Clarence Pfundheller told me during his multi-session interview I had with him...He was Iowa's last living Pearl Harbor survivor who "lived" through the horrors
of that attack, and I'll always treasure his time sharing
his story with me.
During our conversations we got to talking about Veterans in general and I told him about the concerns I had when approaching a Veteran,
when he first started talking about his Pearl Harbor experiences with me - especially ones who
saw combat and that I've understood that a lot of Veterans don't talk about their service.
What he told me had
NEVER occurred to me before when he said, "Dave, no one ever asked me!"
Not until he was working at a school and one of the teachers found out he was a WWII Veteran, so
she asked him if he would tell his story to her class - which he did and that was the first time he ever spoke about his service to anyone - because - No one ever asked...
So I'm asking any Manning connected Veteran right now - if you want to tell your story, please contact me.
Now I'm scanning my 2nd cousin's military scrapbook...I'll follow up in the near future with an interview to get his military story.
Here are a few samples of his pictures. Most of the time there is little if any information included with the pictures in Veteran's scrapbooks,
but fortunately John wrote on the backs of many of his pictures which give some basic context.
John Ehrichs - basic training December 1964
John Ehrichs - discharge November 30, 1966
John Ehrichs - Ft. Sam Houston, 1965
John Ehrichs - in Korea
John Ehrichs - 1st Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, 38th Infantry
Felix Castro
A lot of people will take pictures of their military buddies
but so many didn't write down their names.
When I go through a Veteran's pictures, I'm also looking for other pictures of his/her family and their history.
During the interview I'll ask them about their childhood into young
adult, and then their military story, back home, and current updates.
I'll only use the military aspects of their interview in the Manning Veterans' book but want to also get
some of their life's story while I'm working with them.
Ehrichs Century farm 1981
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture - Robert Lounsberry, John Ehrichs, Iowa Farm Bureau - Dale Nelson
Century farm information
Note the little items of history that John had kept in the PDF link above.
These are the pieces of the history puzzle that VERY
Few people will scan and add to the digital database...not me, I want to
scan as much history, even when it might be considered insignificant...
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