members of congress who served in the military. now, a brief conversation about the project with director robert patrick and reference specialist megan harris. >> what is the idea behind the veterans history project? patrick: the project is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the wartime memories of veterans. congress saw the wisdom back in 2003 as part of the american folklife center at the library of congress. the way we are doing that is collect primarily oral histories of veterans, sitting down with them, having the talk about their experiences, particularly during the time they served in the military and particularly during the time of war. we take in these histories be a audio or video but also original materials like photographs letters, diaries, things families find themselves with that they do not know what to do with. they also tell a very compelling story. as i said, we do this with the american folk art center at the library of congress and try to make it accessible to as many people around the country as possible. and although this has been done for the last 15 -- and all over this has been done for the past 15 years primarily through public participation volunteers, organizations, institutions, individuals, people sitting down with the veteran in their life capturing the story. rios: president clinton signed the legislation, is that correct? patrick: he did. unanimous legislation, and it has taken off. rios: you depend on volunteer interviewers, so essentially family members, friends? patrick: over half the interviews have been done by people who just know the veteran. we provide something called a veterans history project field kit that tells them how to do the interview. we require it at least to be 30 minutes, but as you might know some veterans can talk for several hours with their interview. we've also had a lot of students involved with this as part of their coursework, as a part of community service. boy scouts have taken it on as an eagle scout project. we've done it through retirement communities, department of veterans affairs, veterans service organizations, naturally, so it really has been widespread. we've done this in every state in the country, so it is a nationwide effort. rios: what was the idea behind using volunteer interviewers are opposed to professional interviewers? patrick: part of the idea was so that communities get a better sense of veterans among them. too often, these veterans have not told their stories. they have held them inside for various reasons, and we have heard time and time again of people who interview a veteran and say they never knew that about him. particularly family. this has been a great gift to families who have not had the whole story and now have a serious way for the story to be told. four -- for the purpose of coming here was to be used for research services. for a lot of reasons, it was thought we should do it at the grassroots level. rios: tell us about the wars that are covered in the project. harris: we collect stories of america's war veterans from world war i to the current conflicts in iraq and afghanistan, which means we collect stories of anyone who served in u.s. uniform from 1914 onward. the 20th and 21st centuries, if they served in combat or not, if they served abroad or at home. we collect all of those stories and really find value in all of those stories. rios: as was mentioned earlier you do provide guidance to the volunteer interviewers. can you tell us about the guidance you provide? harris: we provide -- we do not like to think of it as a script, but we provide a set of questions to help facilitate the conversation -- everything from how the veteran grew up and was raised and then through things like basic training, shipment overseas, keeping in touch with family members, even questions such as how was the food can really provide insight into that social, cultural experience into serving in the military, which is what our project is about. rios: do you have any guidance for prompting veterans that might be more reluctant to provide their experiences yucca best experiences -- experiences. harris: i would say to the interviewers to be patient. it takes some practice and it also requires one to be a good listener. to provide that space for someone to really share that story that might be difficult to share. rios: you collect audio as well as video oral histories. what other material do you have in the collection? harris: we collect audio and video oral histories, but we also take original material such as letters, diaries, military papers, memoirs, even like creative works -- drawings or sketches. really the only thing we do not take our -- our -- are medals, three-dimensional artifacts, but really, everything else as long as it is an original piece, photographs as well, can really help illuminate the veterans experience in addition to the oral history. rios: how much of the collection is online? harris: right now, about 15% is fully digitized and available on our website. rios: do you hope to eventually digitize the whole collection? harris: we do, but it sort of an uphill battle because we are always accepting new material. over an extended time, that is the goal. patrick: we have about 96,000 collections, and we bring in about 100 every week. we consider ourselves to be the largest oral history project of this type in the country. it is something that only 96,000 -- that all the 96,000, predominantly its world war ii veterans because the guidance was to get the older veterans first, but we are putting more and more emphasis on korean war veterans and particularly vietnam veterans, which are our next great group of veterans but again, we are representative from world war i all the way to what has happened over the last 10 years in iraq and afghanistan. rios: how do you search the database? patrick: there is a database through our website where someone can go online through this website and actually search by name, by service, by conflict, male/female, p.o.w., some other the search terms, and we have other search terms like unit, significant battles that have come out, and then, the individual entry on the website for the veterans provides a little bit of information. they can search even further into some information about the veterans themselves. rios: are there any particular themes that have emerged in these interviews? patrick: for me, it reminds me of being a veteran myself. all of us who served are proud that we served, and it comes through with these veterans, no matter what conflict they come from. there's great pride in having served, having done something for their country, and the fact that it has meant something in their life and this has been a significant part of their life that they do not forget and that kind of guides them in some ways to this day. harris: i would agree with that. one of the main themes i see is that this was life-changing. no matter what they experienced what conflict they served in, this was a life-changing experience. it's really quite something to be able to have that window into a life-changing episode and to see that and to hear about their life before and life after and how their service has affected that. rios: any particular challenges with this project? patrick: i think the challenge that we have is that this is a voluntary effort. there's 17 million living wartime veterans and about 23 million, 24 million veterans in total. we're looking for people to come forward and do these interviews. it is a voluntary effort. we try not to make it very hard. again, through our website, we have a field kit someone can take to do this interview. the thing that we're talking about all the time is go out and interview the veteran in your life. it has not been a challenge to the point that we are still getting collections in, but more and more, we are hoping people get involved with this project. rios: robert patrick, as you mentioned, you are a retired member of the u.s. army and also a graduate of the army war college. in your view, how will these oral histories enhance our understanding of the american war experience? patrick: what we like to say about the veterans history project -- it talks about the human experience of war. there have been hundreds of thousands of books written by the generals, diplomats, by historians, and they should be written and should be understood, but to hear the story actually from the bottom-up, from those who were there, to hear it in their own voice, to see their own letters, their own photographs, what they went through, it's being told in an entirely different way, and i think the technology we have today i think is a remarkable part of that. we can capture that now and hear these voices, the stories, and have that grassroots level of what it's like. i think for me, that is what i think is important about the project. harris: i agree. i think, too, accessibility of this material is one of our key goals we are trying to put the raw stories themselves in people's hands so that they can make their own judgments and interpretations themselves instead of it being mediated through a book or novel or some secondary text, that people can go to our website and hear the stories of veterans and their own words and draw their own conclusions, and we have tried to use some of our different tools, things like our website. we have an online exhibit and also a blog to show people the wide variety of different types of stories that are in our collection and the -- not even lessons that can be learned but the different experiences that are in there, to point those out to people and show the wide diversity of different experiences. rios: thank you for being with us. on american history tv. patrick: thank you for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> now senator john mccain, who was interviewed as part of the library of congress veterans history project. senator mccain served as a navy pilot in the vietnam war. the north vietnamese captured him in 1967. he was held as a pow for over five years. he talks about his time as a captive and his near-death experiences. it's about 30 minutes. michelle: my name is michelle kelly, and i'm the director of oral history for the battleship massachusetts, and we are an official partner of the veterans oral history project that the library of congress. i'd

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