September 19 – Approximately 68,000 people are buried in Santa Fe National Cemetery – most of them veterans and some of them spouses.
Their tombstones reveal their names, dates of birth and death, in which branch of the military they served and what rank they have.
However, every funeral is the story of a life that is in danger of being forgotten.
A coalition of local veterans, educators, media specialists and others are hoping to prevent this from happening by capturing the stories of soldiers and soldiers buried in the National Cemetery as part of the Veterans Legacy Project. This five-year National Cemetery Administration initiative engages college students on a project where they research veterans’ histories, interview relatives, write about the lives of veterans, and create short videos.
The program’s college partners – in this case Santa Fe Community College – also work with public school teachers in their communities to develop lesson plans based on the veterans’ stories.
“This will spark a discussion in New Mexico, and perhaps nationally, too, to understand how important the New Mexicans were in so many historical military events,” said Ken Dettelbach, a Vietnam War veteran who spearheaded the United States several years ago Has contributed to the project.
It will provide an opportunity “to tell the story through the eyes of family members of those buried in the National Cemetery,” he added.
College officials will recruit and train students to conduct and record interviews with family members. Students participating in the bilingual program will also work with college staff to create an interactive website where visitors can learn more about the project, the veterans, and the public school component.
Santa Fe Community College’s one-year contract with the National Cemetery Administration was signed last week. It is still unclear how many students are attending or which veterans they will profile in the first semester of the program, said Steve Martinez, assistant professor of history at the college. The project proposal calls for profiles of 15 veterans in the first year.
The story goes on
Martinez said the program will give students an opportunity to document the history of the Hispanic and Native American veterans who have contributed to the long and rich history of military service in New Mexico.
“We can pay tribute to many of these veterans who have been forgotten,” he said.
The University of Central Florida at Orlando is one of several schools across the country offering the program. The website includes veteran biographies with annotated sources such as interviews, books, media reports, and historical documents, as well as photos and a mobile application for visitors interested in viewing Florida’s national cemeteries.
The K-12 public school curriculum created for this program is called “Where the Cemetery Meets the Classroom”. Lesson plans cover a range of topics including the Seminole War in Florida and the role of African Americans in the military.
Amelia Lyons, associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida, said she started a similar project on local veterans before applying to the National Cemetery Administration for assistance.
Students at the university have so far recorded the lives of more than 200 veterans – before, during, and after their years of service.
Not only does the project help students connect with US history as researchers on a personal level, but it also helps students understand what historians do on a simple level: how to ask questions, how to refine those questions, and primary and secondary sources and use them together to construct this narrative. It helps produce students who are critical thinkers. “
Dettelbach said the Santa Fe Community College program – which provides fees to participating students and teachers – will help students learn more about local veterans and improve their communication and presentation skills.
“The students will jump on it; the families [of veterans] will jump on it, “he said.
For these family members, he said, the Legacy Project can serve as “a catharsis to talk about relatives who have been on duty or at war”.
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