By Eric Douglas
Valor is supposed to be the stuff of legends; of heroes who sacrifice everything; people who die to save friends or strangers. By the time I finished the “West Virginia Voices of War” documentary, I realized valor is more common than we think.
In early 2012, I began collecting oral histories from West Virginia war veterans after learning that there were only 20 or so West Virginia veterans in the Library of Congress Veterans History Project archive. In total, I drove more than 2000 miles, collected more than 50 hours of recordings and interviewed 46 war veterans from World War II to Afghanistan.
The veterans spoke about their reasons for enlisting, emotions surrounding leaving for war, losing friends, getting wounded and the comradery that comes with serving. It was less about “war stories” and more about experiences and the lasting costs of war for the soldiers and their families. If not for the timber of their voices and the accents, dialects and pronunciations, you might not be able to tell the difference between one veteran and the next. Their stories were strikingly similar, regardless of the war, branch of service or even gender. It was about the human experience of fighting wars and living.
The veterans featured in “West Virginia Voices of War”
Eugene Lusk left for Europe on March 23, 1944. He said he was sick 10 of the 12 days he spent crossing the Atlantic, living on peanuts and Coca-Cola. He boarded a troop ship (again getting sick) and eventually touched mainland Europe on June 6, 1944; D-Day. He saw combat, survived air raids, guarded prisoners and survived to come home. He never forgot his war service, but like a lot of World War II veterans, he put his service behind him and raised his family.
Richard Ojeda worked his way from being a self-described “knucklehead” as a kid, to an Army sergeant who returned home to West Virginia to earn a degree and then back to the army where he rose to the rank of Major. He served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan along with a deployment to Haiti after the earthquake. Coming home to Logan, Ojeda saw poverty and decay in his hometown and created the Logan Empowerment Action and Development (LEAD) Community Organization. He’s seen the worst poverty and inhumanity the world has to offer and remains optimistic and motivated to do what he can.
Dwight W. Brooks was a waist gunner on a B-17 Bomber over Europe. His plane made an emergency landing, sliding onto the landing field in England without landing gear. He climbed out of the hatch and pulled every other crew member out of the burning plane. He was awarded a Bronze star for his actions.
Robert Fields was fighting in Vietnam when he was called on to save his fellow soldiers in a boat in the rice paddies. When their propeller got fouled, he climbed over the side, in the dark while taking fire, and cleared the propeller so they could get away.
Paige Parrish Hunter was a member of the first group of women the West Virginia National Guard sent to war. That was Desert Storm. She doesn’t think of herself as a trailblazer even though she has been the first woman to hold every position she has attained. She said she just wanted to serve and do her part. She is now a colonel.
Marva Gray served two full years in Iraq and then came home, like many veterans, with lingering problems. She said she decided she was fine and it took her more than a year and a half to realize she wasn’t. She finally went to the VA and got help adjusting, although she said she still gets nervous at the sight of debris beside the road or when a siren goes off.
Hershel “Woody” Williams, West Virginia’s only surviving Medal of Honor recipient, talked about his experiences in war and the work he does now speaking to veterans groups, encouraging war veterans like Marva to seek help. Williams travels the country tirelessly supporting veterans issues and is working to erect a series of monuments in honor of Gold Star Families—the families of those who lost their lives in war.
These are but a few examples of the stories these men and woman told of their service. The common thread in all the interviews was the willingness to do what had to be done when it needed to be done. These veterans didn’t seek fame or attention. Most said they would do it again today if called up, in spite of permanent scars, both physical and mental.
“West Virginia Voices of War” is a multimedia presentation, combining audio recordings with still portraits of each veteran. The companion book “Common Valor” includes longer stories of each veteran along with additional veterans who did not make it into the documentary and is available on Amazon in print and on Kindle.
You can see the entire documentary online at www.booksbyeric.com. The first clip is shown below:
The documentary is also available to be shown as a fundraiser for any group that wants to sponsor a showing, with the money going to support veteran’s issues or groups.
About the Author
Eric Douglas received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from Marshall University and worked for several years in local newspapers, honing his skills as a storyteller. Afterward, he worked as a freelance journalist in the former Soviet Union. In 2008, Eric returned to Russia and photographed many of the people and places he knew from the 1990s. In 2010, he had solo photographic exhibitions of his Russia work in Russia, France and the United States.
In 2011, Eric completed a photodocumentary project on Harvesting Divers in Honduras, a project that earned him a Certificate in Documentary Arts from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. His documentary work was used as the basis for stories in The New York Times, NationalGeographic.com, “Rock Center with Brian Williams” and Central China Television.
In 2013, he completed the ‘West Virginia Voices of War’ documentary. He is currently working on a new project following a friend through chemotherapy for breast cancer for the second time in 10 years.
He has also published a series of adventure novels, two children’s books and a series of adventure short stories on Kindle.
