An Oshkosh-based, nonprofit museum dedicated to educating the public about the experience of war veterans and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s Department of History are teaming up to host a one-day symposium in November publicly examining and helping preserve the diverse experiences of the Iraq War.
On March 20, 2012 – the 9th anniversary of the beginning of the current Iraq War – the partners announced the Military Veterans Museum Inc.’s successful capture of a $10,000 major grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council to support “Eyewitnesses, Combatants and America’s Newest Veterans: The Iraq War in Retrospect.”
In their successful grant application, Military Veterans Museum and UW Oshkosh propose the symposium as a first-of-its-kind to “engage members of the general public in a critical assessment of the Iraq War – a war which is presently drawing to a close but whose impact on American society, politics and military families will be felt for a long time to come.”
Students, staff, war veterans and archivists from the UW Oshkosh Department of History, Veterans Services Center, Military Science Department and Forrest R. Polk Library are also involved in the coordination and hosting of the symposium. The Nov. 10 event, planned two days before Veterans Day 2012, is designed to be free and open to the general public. It is tentatively scheduled to take place on the UW Oshkosh campus with specific locations to be determined.
“This symposium will attempt to situate the experience of ‘America’s newest veterans’ within the context of the war itself,” said Stephen Kercher, UW Oshkosh associate professor of history.
From the perspective of the volunteer members and supporters of the Military Veterans Museum, the symposium expertly meshes with the organization’s mission.
“Our focus is going to be education,” said Ralph Beck, president of the Military Veterans Museum volunteer board of directors, which remains on a parallel mission to complete a new “Fields of Honor” museum honoring and preserving the experiences of U.S. war veterans south of Oshkosh, near U.S. Highway 41 and State Highway 26.
The Saturday, Nov. 10 symposium will bring together “scholars, journalists, artists and humanities experts from many different disciplines” to “inaugurate retrospective analysis of the War in Iraq,” the Wisconsin Humanities Council grant proposal states.
“We believe the time has finally come to begin considering the history of the war and its impact in a more dispassionate yet inquisitive manner,” the proposal states. “Given the histories of previous postwar periods and the present-day and forward-looking predilections of our countrymen, we fear that the Iraq War will soon further slip from American’s memories. With the proposed symposium, we hope to encourage Wisconsinites from all walks of life to remember a war before it is forgotten and to begin the process of preserving memories while the memories remain fresh, tangible and urgent.”
Still months from the event, the partners are already developing the program and presentations.
The free symposium will feature a keynote speaker and six, 90-minute sessions moderated by UW Oshkosh professors and featuring special panelists, including Iraq War veterans who attend UW Oshkosh and who are members of area communities. The sessions are designed to be diverse in nature, focusing on the experiences of soldiers through different lenses, with potential subjects ranging from the role of women in the war, the work of war journalists and correspondents, how media and film have portrayed the war and the preservation of veterans’ memories and records in a digital era.
The ease and pervasiveness of technology has made the latter a particular challenge.
Gone are the days of paper military records, photographs and film negatives. Yet, despite the advance and the ease of instant record production, many digital military orders, records, photographs and other documents helping tell the story of the Iraq War are already disappearing. Soldiers may be removing significant content from email inboxes or clearing off images from digital cameras and, in doing so, deleting history.
The symposium will include a presentation designed to help veterans learn how best to preserve the stories contained in digital media. That is just one of several sessions designed to directly appeal to and engage local, regional and state citizens in a brand new examination and discussion of a war that had a profound impact on domestic and global life and policy.
Additional details regarding the symposium’s registration and day-of lineup of sessions are expected in spring and summer.
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