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Lincoln Museum Features Veterans Stories Online
A new Web page on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Web site features veterans who tell of their war experiences in their own words.

Starting Tuesday, audio files of 106 hours of interviews with 49 veterans are being posted so that everyone can hear the vivid memories of men and women who served in wartime. Harold Steel of Dover is one of those vets. He can still see the gruesome find at a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. "Here in this open area of the enclosure were the bodies that had just been machine gunned," he said. "They were clothed in striped prisoner uniforms, and that was the first shock. But then I looked over to my left, and there were the bodies, like stacked like cord wood, of many, many emaciated bodies."

Mark DePue, director of oral history at the library and museum, says memories of the concentration camps are vivid for many vets. "Boy, they all remember that incident," he said. "And a lot of them say they knew what they were fighting for before, but that really drove the point home."

Some of the other interviews focus on the brutal combat of the Korean War. Others are light-hearted, telling of blind dates that turned into marriage, or describe love letters to wives at home.

You can find the website by CLICKING HERE.

(Illinois Radio Network)
11 11 08 by Newsroom
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