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Week 13

 Hello all! Welcome back to the Veterans' History project journey throughout the fall 2025 semester! There are only two weeks left until the end of the semester, and I do not know where the time has gone! We have one more meeting as a group, and then next week I will present my showcase, illustrating and displaying everything I have accomplished over the semester. Then the following week will be my last blog post, and it will be over! It is a bittersweet thought; I will miss my time here, but I am also excited to see what the next chapter of life holds. This is my last semester at UCF, as I will be graduating this December. This degree has been a lifelong goal of mine, and to be so close to the end is a great feeling. I am very proud to be able to spend the last semester here at UCF with VHP and am beyond grateful for the opportunity.  But we aren't done yet! Tomorrow, November 15, is VHP's story day and will consist of at least two interviews with veterans from the Vietnam...
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Week 12

 Hello All! Welcome back to week 12! We are fast approaching the end! However, the work at VHP is showing no signs of slowing down. This week, I spent some time with Lorraine Holland's story. She was a maintenance and logistics officer and served 20 years, retiring at the rank of major. Her story was unique in that it sheds light on an often-overlooked aspect of military service: the difficulties and diverse experiences that women face while serving. An example of this is her enlistment in the Women's Army Corps, which was the only option for women at the time. She was also the first woman to graduate from the machinist course in the army. She also covers other issues unique to women service members, such as sexual assault and PTSD. She was truly a pioneer for women in the military, and it's been an honor to spend time learning about her life and story. There are a lot of issues with the files saved, so I will be spending extensive time over the next week cleaning them up a...
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Week 11

 Hello All! Welcome back to week 11 of this journey! Happy Halloween! I hope you all had a great evening with friends and family! The work continued this week at VHP! I spent the majority of my time this week rewriting the audio-visual log for the interview with James Hayes from the spring 2022 semester. He was a WW2 veteran and an infantryman. I always find it interesting to listen to how different the military was when he went to basic training in the 1940s, as opposed to when I went in 2015. The differences are apparent, but so are the similarities. This is one of my favorite aspects of studying history: seeing how different the past is, and at the same time, understanding how similar the past and present still are. James Hayes' story really reminded me of this, and it was a great honor working on his life story.  Coming up soon at VHP is the story day on the 15th of November! This will be an exciting opportunity to conduct interviews and get to meet veterans face...
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Week 10

 Hello all !! And welcome to week 10 of my internship with UCF's Veterans' History Project!! This was the last week spent with Dierdre, Donald, and Joel. I started Monday by finishing their transcript review and corrections. I had to spend the most time with Donald Long and completely redo his transcript timestamps. His overall transcription was good, but the timestamps on the AV log and transcript were off and required some time to correct. This was an enjoyable process, and Donald's story was an extremely interesting story for me. After completing the reviews of those files, I was assigned another set of four, and they look to be full of work to keep me busy. I will be diving into those over the weekend and will update you all next week!  I would also like to take a moment to say congratulations to our team's project manager, Sarah Boye, on her position at the regional history center! While we'll miss her help at our Tuesday meetings, I'm sure I speak for all ...
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Week 9

 Welcome back to Week 9! This week was another week of processing and double-checking past interviews.  This involves me processing the transcriptions for several Spring 2022 interviews. These transcriptions are for the interviews of Deirdre Krause, Donald Long, and Joel Aiken. Deirdre was a nurse, Donald was a pilot in the army, and Joel was a pilot in the Navy. As an avid aviation enthusiast, getting to spend time with Donald and Joel's stories has been a blast! They both have a passion for flying, and hearing them give expert breakdowns on their favorite aircraft, along with the stories they've experienced throughout their careers, is truly fascinating. It has been an honor to work with these veterans' stories. Over the past week, I proofread and processed the AV logs and abstracts for those interviews, and I will be poring over the transcripts this week. Getting the opportunity to work with these testimonies is a treat, and I wish I had been able to start my work with...
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Week 8

Welcome to Week 8, everybody!! The work at the Veterans' History Project continues !! This week, the team has been focused on data processing and organizing files and folders. This was going along smoothly when my team lead, Jayden, re-assigned me and another intern to correct the folders that had been identified as erroneous by the rest of the team. I have been tasked with reviewing three files this week and have started with the first veteran's story. This is an engaging task, and I plan on working through most of the weekend on it!  Another exciting item of note this week was the keynote speaker we had earlier in the week. Brendan O'Connor, a popular content creator and local journalist/historian, was able to come and deliver a presentation on the OAAB and Baldwin Park. This was an amazing and informative dive into his career and the history of one of Orlando's most historic areas. I was not able to make the in-person meeting, but the ability to watch by Zoom recordi...
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Week 7

 Welcome all to Week 7! It is crazy to think that it is mid-term time already! I know I got a late start on the project, but it is still unbelievable that it's already at the halfway point. This week was more file organization and processing. The goal of the team is to go through historic files at the moment, so there are no new stories to analyze, but organizing and processing are great ways to understand the system better.  Next week, we have a guest speaker coming to campus to give a presentation to the public history interns. His name is Brendan O'Connor, and he is a journalist and content creator. He focuses a lot of his content creation and journalism on the Orlando area, and it will be an exciting presentation. He will discuss the Orlando Army Air Base in detail, focusing on its regional history and impact. This is exciting for me as a relatively new central Floridian, as learning more and more about this area is always a great experience and opportunity....
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