Preserving Mementos of War and Service

By Elsa Hahn

Personal documents belonging to active-duty military and veterans, such as handwritten letters, emails, photos, and social media posts, help humanize the American war experience and become part of our shared history – but not if they’re lost, hidden, forgotten, or destroyed.

An LSU researcher is now offering resources to help make sure the latter doesn’t happen.

For the vast majority of Americans, mementos that tell stories of war are found in archives and museums. But for those who serve in the military, these objects are also found in attics and garages, in closets, and under beds – and, increasingly, on digital devices, such as cell phones and computers. Some of these keepsakes eventually make their way into archives and museums, donated by veterans and their families, but when they don’t, some aspect of the story of the American war experience inevitably goes untold.

“I kept coming back to this question; how do you pass down a bunch of emails?” said Edward Benoit, III, associate professor in the LSU School of Library & Information Science and director of the Virtual Footlocker Project. “You probably don’t.”

Benoit is a military veteran, and so was his father. When his father, a retired Air Force officer, died in 2011, Benoit inherited his physical footlocker, a box filled with handwritten letters, photographs, journals, and other memorabilia.

“As a trained archivist, I couldn’t help wondering how the people I served with, especially with the advent of social media around the time of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, would pass on their memories,” Benoit said.

Over the past five years, Benoit has conducted research with activeduty military and veterans and gathered resources to make it easier for those who serve to preserve their memorabilia for themselves and others. He has developed two sets of curricula that are now freely available on the Virtual Footlocker Project website. One is for active-duty military and veterans, and the other trains archivists and cultural heritage workers on how to work with service members and veterans.

“For those serving in the military and for veterans, as well as archivists and museum professionals, the resources provided as part of the LSU Virtual Footlocker Project serve as a comprehensive guide to documenting and safeguarding a legacy of service,” said Kimberly Guise, senior curator and director for curatorial affairs at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. “These valuable sources can give us a glimpse into the individual experiences of those in service –the insecurities, the inspirations, the everyday – that are incredibly relatable and key to sharing the stories of those in wartime.”

While World War II has been thoroughly documented, the same isn’t true of later wars, including the war in Korea between 1950 and 1953. Preserving mementos from all wars is essential to balance the historical record, Benoit argues.

“People forget about the Korean War all the time,” Benoit said. “There was a poll several years ago that found a majority of people thought the Korean War lasted eleven years than its actual length because M*A*S*H, the TV show, lasted eleven years. People’s interpretation of the Korean War pretty much became M*A*S*H, even though M*A*S*H was a satire about Vietnam that just happened to be set in Korea.”

An Army veteran who participated in Benoit’s research as part of a focus group is New Orleans resident Tara Garbutt. Inspired by the research and wise from her family’s experience of losing “a lot of stuff” after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when they had nine feet of water in their house, Garbutt is now pursuing a second master’s degree to become an archivist at LSU in Baton Rouge.

“I’ve always loved history,” Garbutt said. “As a veteran and archivist, I see the value in LSU’s Virtual Footlocker Project because I didn’t really think of saving my military stuff, and I lost a lot. That teaches you something.”