Jordan Green

Interviewing World War II veterans is a rite of passage for journalists. Around national holidays and milestone historical anniversaries, reporters find a veteran willing to share his story, and we write it so readers can picture what that veteran did for our nation: risk his life to conquer one of the most evil, murderous regimes that ever existed.

Finding a World War II veteran to interview used to be easy. More than 16 million men served during that war from 1941 to 1945. They were sons, fathers, husbands, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends.

May 8 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day — Victory in Europe day — when Nazi Germany surrendered after being beaten by the Allied Forces. But 80 years after American men returned home from war, few of them are left. The country has an estimated 66,000 living WW II veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported in January.

Soon, the day will come when there are no living veterans of the most notable, and most noble, war to be waged in recent human history. No men to talk first-hand about the horrific evils of the Nazis, who killed millions of innocent people. No men to talk about how they overcame unparalleled adversity on those European battlefields. No men to tell of how they fought for God and country to spare people who couldn’t help themselves — to ensure that the world would be free from Hitler’s grasp.

On Tuesday, I tried to find a World War II veteran in our area to interview. I know of two. In 2024, I interviewed Elmer “Jack” Hetzel, a 103-year-old Big Sandy man who has spent most of his life in ministry since his military service ended.

In 2023, I interviewed 102-year-old Bullard man Briscoe Davis, who still can wear his Army Air Corps uniform. (I might add that he’s the funniest veteran I’ve interviewed.)

In community journalism, when we’re looking to tell a story for a special occasion, we try to find people to interview whom we haven’t interviewed before. Our aim is to tell previously untold stories so that we can provide a more comprehensive picture of the world around us and preserve them for history’s sake. So, on Tuesday, I set out to find another WW II veteran in our area.

That task proved sadly challenging.

I reached out to two friends in the veteran community: Thad Nehrling with Longview American Legion Post 140 and Mike Balfay, who organizes the annual Texas Veterans Military Show near Tyler, a celebration of the men and women who’ve served our country.

When I asked Thad if he knew of any living WW II veterans in the area, he paused and said: “No, but I’ll make some calls.” Larry Hord, commander of Longview American Legion Post 232, called me that night to say he knows of a veteran in Kilgore, but I wasn’t able to obtain his contact information in time. Mike told me he knew of some veterans in Dallas and Bossier City.

The days when W II vets still lived among us are fading fast.

I’m only 25, so my knowledge of World War II is limited to what I’ve heard from the few veterans I’ve met, from textbooks I’ve read and from some stories passed down from my great-grandfathers.

One, Cecil Walter Kitchens, served in the Pacific Theater and was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp; he survived the Bataan Death March, a certifiable miracle. My other great-grandfather, U.L. Moss, was on a troop train headed from Texas to the West Coast to be deployed to Japan when one of the atomic bombs was dropped. The train turned around. I’m likely alive because he didn’t have to participate in a full-scale invasion of Japan, which would have been slaughter for Allied troops.

Cecil “Kitch” died long before I was a thought, and U.L. (he was “Granddad” to me) died when I was almost 7. I have only a few memories of him, but my dad has a lot. I treasure the stories of other veterans because of what my great-grandpas did.

I remember when I was 10 years old and hearing that countless WW II veterans were dying of old age each day. I was saddened to think that, one day, they’d all be gone. Now, 15 years later, we’re sadly close.

I fear what our nation will lose when those men are gone. We’re not just losing guys with stories to tell, but the men we ought to aspire to be: brave, selfless, committed, loving others more than self.

There are countless books written about those men and what they did, countless newspaper stories and documentaries and recorded interviews retelling their heroism, grit and mettle on the battlefield. Those are powerful. But the next generation never will shake the hand of a man who was in that war and hear his raspy voice talk about marching toward enemy fire.

Though their stories may be recorded, they will seem like distant memories. In reality, those atrocities are still all too recent. As the old adage goes, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

The stories of WW II guys mean something to me personally. I’ve lived a really easy life in America thanks to them. I’ve never been asked to give up my life for someone else, and I desperately try to avoid dying. But that’s not what the men of World War II did.

They were willing to lay down their lives — and more than a half-million of them did — so that every one of us could enjoy the life that we do today. So that people imprisoned by evil could be liberated. So that all who would do evil would know that they will face justice one day.

Those men possessed the character to fight for what’s right no matter the personal cost. They had the strength to persevere through the harshest of human experiences. They fostered the brotherhood to battle together. Above all, they were filled with the heart — the heart — to love others more than themselves, even to the point of death.

When I interview veterans of any war, I’m not just asking questions about combat. I want to know how they endured tragedy, how they passionately fought for people, how they developed the depth of character to never give up, how they kept faith in God in all their trials. I seek to know how they did it all because I wonder if I would, and I see that there’s something remarkable about a heart that does.

Because of their stories, I begin to see — though I have yet to fully see and trust — that it’s possible for a human to overcome all odds when God is on his side. Their stories inspire me, and I hope they inspire you, too. I hope those stories aren’t lost to time, ignorance and apathy. Sadly, we’ll need to know one day how to fight and not give up in the face of extreme evil.

Thank God we’ve got some stories to listen to.