Week 5

 Welcome all to week 5 of my journey with the UCF Veterans' History Project. I was able to hit the ground on real contributions this week by beginning to process the interview of Paul Bertram from April of 2025. My tasks for the week consisted of writing the AV log and Abstract for the interview. It was really exciting to finally be able to process real stories, and it was fascinating to listen to and analyze Paul's life and experiences. As I said earlier, this was my first experience working with a real interview like this, and I really enjoyed it. It took a lot longer to complete than I thought it would, but I barely noticed the time. I was so focused on Paul's testimony and enthralled by his story that it did not seem like work at all! As a veteran myself, I found a lot of similarities in his story despite our decades apart. I was also stationed in Pearl Harbor and lived near Waikiki, which is something he did for a significant portion of his career as well. He was a very engaging speaker, and the interview felt as though I was having a conversation with him. It was a great way to jump into the work at VHP, and I am excited to continue the process with both Paul and other veterans. 

Another exciting opportunity on the horizon is next week's trip with all the Public History interns to the Orlando History Center in downtown Orlando. We will have the opportunity to get some archival access and a specially catered tour of the whole museum. This will be a great and exciting opportunity, and I can't wait to tell you all more about it in next week's blog. Thank you all for your continued support, and I will talk to you all next week! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1

 Hello!! Welcome to my blog about my time with the UCF Veterans' oral history project. I am an undergraduate intern working on the project and will be writing this blog to document my experiences. I am extremely excited to get started and am looking forward to the adventure that awaits me. Documenting these veterans' stories is a vital part of our history as a nation and as a community. I am honored to be able to contribute what I can. Throughout this semester, I will be posting weekly blog posts sharing my thoughts on the work that I and my fellow interns have done. However, this first week did not contain much substance, so I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself, give you all my background, and explain how I ended up here.  My name is Matt Fedewa. I grew up in southern Michigan, and as far back as I can remember, I have always had a passion for history. I loved learning about the past and how people have survived and overcome the many challenges that hum...
Read more

Week 2

 Welcome to week 2 of my internship blog with the UCF Veterans Public History Program! This week was uneventful, and there isn't much to write about, so I'll provide you all with a brief overview of the program and its past activities. Thank you all for your patience, and I promise some more engaging material is on its way soon!  The UCF Veterans History Project was founded and put together in 2010 to document and preserve the stories of the Veterans in our community. The history of our country is not complete without the eyewitness testimony of the people who experienced and lived through some of the most tumultuous and impactful moments in our nation's history. Veterans who are interested can apply on the project's website, and while most are logged in to UCF's own database, some stories will be sent to the Library of Congress to be archived there. Over 600 veterans from our central Florida community have contributed their stories. This project continues to be...
Read more

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....
Read more