Fred KeeganFred Keegan’s father died in 1936, leaving his mother with three children to raise on her own. He later joined the Navy and survived the sinking of three ships—the U.S.S. Nevada at Pearl Harbor, the U.S.S. Lexington in the South Pacific, and “a wooden submarine chaser” in the Atlantic Ocean. He retired as a Chief Warrant Officer in the Navy.
Welcome to the World War 2 Stories website.
Most high school students will tell you that history is boring. Reading a list of dates and facts can be a drag and often seem detached from their lives. Sitting down with someone who has actually lived through a major historical event–like World War II–and hearing what he or she experienced though, is a different story. That’s what this website is all about: sharing stories and making connections.This project represents the collaborative efforts of VOICES: Community Stories Past and Present, Inc. and City High School teachers and students and World War II veterans. Together we crafted the stories that makeup this website.
VOICES and City High School are neighbors: we share the same building in downtown Tucson and more significantly, we share many of the same values. VOICES is a non-profit organization that mentors young people in the documentary arts and helps them learn how to tell their personal and community stories. At VOICES, we believe that by improving artistic and intellectual skills through many forms of storytelling, young people strengthen their sense of identity and emotional well being. By sharing stories and creating intergenerational connections, youth and adults are able to breakdown stereotypes and create a more authentic understanding of one another. City High School believes in community-based education and includes in their curriculum many hands-on activities that encourage students to understand better where they live and what their role is as young community members.
This project took place over the course of the 2005-2006 academic year. After initial planning in the Fall 2005, VOICES began working with two City High School Humanities teachers and 80 students to prepare them for the project and how to interview and photograph the veterans. On February 7, 2006, 19 World War II veterans of the Pacific Theater of War arrived at our building for two-hour interviews. The students had received training in the art of interviewing–how to go deeper and get more–as well as how to elicit trust through body and verbal language. These interviews were transcribed and returned to the veterans for editing and given to the students to practice “visual listening”–reading the interview and looking for images or ephemera to go along with the story. The students were also trained in photography, including aesthetics, composition, and editing, as well as how to take portraits. The veterans then returned on March 13, 2006 for Photography Day when the students took their portraits and selected images and ephemera to be scanned. This was also a chance for the students to meet again with their veterans and ask any follow-up questions and meet in a less-formal setting. The last stage of the process was compiling the stories, writing captions, and composing expository and creative non-fiction sidebars to accompany the interviews.
We are very pleased to share these stories with you.
Thank you to all of the veterans for their time, generosity, and powerful stories. Thank you to the City High School teachers and students for all of their hard and dedicated work. Thank you to the VOICES staff and artists for their vision and passion.
Enjoy!
Rachel K. Villarreal
Projects Director
VOICES: Community Stories Past and Present, Inc.
May 19, 2006
