During my senior year at Rutgers University, I took a seminar that required students to interview a veteran and transcribe previous interviews. The final products are now part of the Rutgers History Oral Archives and you can find my interview with Louis Trezza. Mr. Trezza was my friend’s grandfather and he graciously accepted my request to interview him for my project. Years later, I wanted my own students to benefit from an experience like this and so, we created a student led oral history project. Using digital recorders, my students interviewed several veterans. Below are their transcripts. I truly believe we can learn so much from the voices of others. Thank you to everyone that made this project possible, especially our veterans.

• Our first interview was with Sgt. Eddie McRae. Sgt. McRae joined the U.S. Army in 1975 and retired in 1997 after 22 years active duty service. In 1997, he came to Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey and was the the Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) Instructor until he retired in 2019. Click here for the transcript of the student interview with Sgt. McRae conducted on May 23, 2017.