 Hi everybody. I'm Gail Sacco. I am the Director of the Library. I'd like to welcome you to the Royceville Public Library for our program, Military Memories and Veterans Voices. This program is the culmination of a month at the library honoring those who have served our military with programs for all ages, from the little ones who come to Story Hour to adults. It's included collections of items for both veterans and active soldiers. And I hope that it has helped people to understand the huge service, oh my goodness, the huge service that those in the military provides for us. Excuse me, I didn't know I was going to get emotional. My dad was a world war II bad. And one of the things I learned from him and other veterans is that for those who serve, it is not about politics, it's about our country, the United States of America. To both the veterans and active military, thank you for your service. We really appreciate it. And if you could stand up, we would. All the people who partnered with the library to make this program happen, these include the trustees of the public library, the president of our board, Jana Shirliwa is sitting over there. Thank you, Jana. The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, the friends of the library, and both the adult youth services staff at the library, we've all kind of worked very hard to pull this program together. It started as something small and just kind of blossomed into something really huge. Gail Brown and Holly and Zee left brainstormed and led the activities here and made the program happen so that it was really awesome. Everyone involved learned something along the way about our military service because of Gail and Colleen's ideas, so a special thank you to them. Now, Leo was a 10th grader at the Borisville High School and has a lovely voice will lead us in the national anthem. To the Military Memories and Veterans Voices Program, I am Gail Brown, Manager of Youth and Family Services. Veterans Day is November 11th, so during the month of November, the Borisville Public Library offered a series of programs and collections to honor, support, and thank our military. One of these programs has been a project that paired youth in grades 5 through 11 with veterans and active military members. The young people interviewed veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and active military members. It has been a living history project as the students and boy scouts heard first-hand accounts from veterans who fought in foreign wars. The age range of the interviewees spans 70 years. Many of them are in attendance today. One of the best ways to honor the sacrifices of those who have served and continue to serve is to hear and share their stories, most especially with the younger generation. It has been my privilege to meet all of you. Each interview was approximately 45 minutes. The students and boy scouts will be sharing only a small portion of what they learned in their interviews. So family members ask them what they learned because they won't be sharing all of that with you today. I want to thank the students and the boy scouts from troop number 73 for their dedication and commitment to this project and for the respects they showed the veterans and military members they interviewed. More important, thank you to our veterans and military members for your service. After the students' presentation, we will have a short intermission with light refreshments courtesy of the Friends of the Library. Ryan Smithson, Iraqi veteran and author, will be speaking after the intermission. And I ask you to please hold your applause until the end of the presentation. Thank you. Hi, I'm Ryan and I had the honor to interview Kenneth H. Bailey. Kenneth H. Bailey achieved the rank of T5 Corporal in the 4th Cavalry 1st Army 7th Corps. He served in the Army during World War II from November 4, 1942 to October 30, 1945. While he was in the service, he drove vehicles primarily for a commanding officer. He drove motorcycles, jeeps and armored cars. Mr. Bailey started his basic training at Fort Meade, South Dakota and described it as tough because it was very, very cold. He was in South Dakota for six months before going to Paris, Texas for another six months of basic training. After his time in basic training, he was shipped to England where he received additional training and prepared for the invasion. Mr. Bailey was at Utah Beach just six days after D-Day in June 1944. He advanced through France and Germany encountering heavy resistance along the way. Mr. Bailey served with honor and courage and was awarded a Bronze Star for the Mortain Counterattack. A Bronze Star is earned for either heroic achievement or heroic service in a combat zone. Mr. Bailey also received the American Service Medal, French Medal of Honor, the Good Conduct Medal and five battle stars which are awarded to indicate service in a specific battle or campaign. Some advice he had for the younger generation was to not lie or exaggerate and to do things now because you don't know what is going to happen in the future. With all of the places that he went, he set some of his favorite places for Paris and London. It was an honor and privilege to speak with Mr. Bailey. Thank you for your service. Hi, my name is Ron and I have been given the privilege of interviewing Frank Dashnell who was in the Navy and he enlisted in the Navy because he did not want to go to school anymore. So he joined the Navy when he was 17. He was put on a ship called USS Oliver Mitchell. This ship was a minus for an open hour Japan. He got very sick on the USS Oliver Mitchell and was sent to a hospital in Philadelphia. When he got better, he went to a ship called the USS Shay that was also sent to open hour Japan. The ship was struck in the hole by an Okabon better known as a Kamikaze pilot. Kamikaze pilot is an airplane made out of aluminum and wood. As the plane flies and it shoots three rockets and in the tip of it, the plane carries 2,000 pounds of dynamite. The plane went straight through the ship and disabled all the communication systems. The ship was filling with water. The crewmen used buckets and patched the holes so the ship could get to Kermit Island for temporary repairs. Then Frank got to Kermit Island. That's when he got out of the Navy. Frank, you may think that you could not save anybody's life but I think you saved thousands of Americans. Thank you for your service, Frank. At the honor of interviewing Tom Lemme, he's 91 years old and his rank is Corporal. He was in the Navy Marine Corps. He was a demolitionist. He served for 19 months from 1944 to 1945. He served in Iwo Jima. He was trained in Maui, Hawaii. He was drafted into the military and he had some challenging experiences. On Iwo Jima, there was a napalm bomb over his head which might have killed him in the venue. But fortunately, the napalm was a dud. Then there was an explosion when everybody was sleeping and him and a couple of his friends were injured. We went to a hospital in Hawaii where we got Purple Heart and that's Shirley's apple. There you go. And look at that smile on his face. I'm Nicholas and I had the honor of interviewing John Livingston. He was a gunner's mate, third class. He served in the Naval Arm Guard which basically what they did, they would go around merchant ships and protect them from the Japanese bombers and German. So his jobs were to clean guns and keep watch. He served through the years of 1944 to 1945 which was two years, one month and one day. He served around the Philippines on ships in that area. He wanted to join because his brother had a listed in the Air Force and he wanted to help out his family. An interesting thing he told me that when him and the ships he was serving with were docked at night, there would be Japanese air raids. He never really knew what was going on and they never actually hit anything but they got really close one time. I thought that was pretty interesting how he could deal with that. Unfortunately Alexander could not be with us today. He suffered a mild concussion so he is home recovering. He's okay. So my friend here is going to fill in for him. I have the honor to introduce Walter Schultz as a World War II vet. He wanted to serve in the Navy because he was 14 years old. He listened to the radio with his grandparents when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He asked his grandparents to allow him to join and at first she said no. Walter changed his age on his birth certificate and tried to join without her permission. After his grandmother heard what he had done she changed her mind and let him join. Walter wanted to protect and defend his country and our freedom. He did this to serve and protect his fellow Americans. When Alex asked those questions he thought Walter was a good citizen and deserved to be honored for his bravery and everything he had done for this country. He did not join the military because he liked it. He wanted to keep America a home of the free and the land of the brave. Thank you. I'm Mason and I interviewed Dr. Tom J. Smith Jr. He was a corporal and he served in the Marine Corps, the 4th Marine Division and in F Company. He is 93 years old. He was originally trained as one of Thompson's Raiders which is a special military branch that goes behind enemy lines. But this group got disbanded so he decided that he was going to stay in the Marines and he would be a scout. He got two purple hearts in the war but he was wounded four times. He served from 1943 to 1945 from everywhere to Saipan, Tinian, Marshall Islands, and Iwo Jima. One of the most important things that I took away from this is that he took a Japanese voice animal called Kakuji Kakudo. Tom, how do you pronounce that? Kakuya. As a president of war and he was the commander of the Japanese first air fleet and that just seems insane. And his favorite part or favorite memory was that he came out alive and his take away for the younger generation was that he did something and then it was over with. Thank you for your service, Tom. Hi, my name is Jason and my veterans name is Paula Keith. He is 85 years old. His rank was private first class military. He was in the Army infantry and his job was to use the M1 rifle and he also used the machine gun. Mr. O'Keefe served from 1952 to 1954 at Fort Devon, Massachusetts. He also served at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. He traveled to Japan and South Korea. He entered the Army after he was drafted and was sent overseas to the Korean War. He served for 13 months in South Korea. His favorite place was Japan. The vehicles and machinery he used was a Jeep and a 3.5 rocket launcher. He was a chaplain. He helped save the people that were hurt by carrying them and standing them. He received the combat infantry badges award from the South Korean President. This was my veteran and I was proud to talk to him. Well, again, everybody. I had the honor of interviewing George Sava, a Buck Sergeant in the Korean War. Mr. Sava enlisted in the Air Force and his brother enlisted as a Marine and he wanted to be in Korea with his brother. He also had a large amount of patriotism and wanted to serve his country. Mr. Sava's father also served in World War I. Mr. Sava was a flight engineer on the C-47, which was a cargo carrier plane, and a B-27, which was a bomber plane. One of Mr. Sava's specific memories of achievement was when one of his bombing runs over a North Korean-held base was directly hit and destroyed. His crew he flew with was very good at what they did. They flew in low and fast at dusk time and destroyed their target nine times out of ten. Another interesting thing that Mr. Sava told me was he took a position on a train to keep off enemies when they tried to take off food and goods from the plane when it went through a slow stretch. The North Koreans would take... Oh, I already said that. But that was Mr. Sava's job to stop that. With his M1, he would fire off a few warning rounds at the Koreans as they would come up to the train. One of the downsides of this job was having to sleep on the rocky and jerky train. Taking his position, he wasn't guaranteed much sleep on the train. Another cool thing about Mr. Sava is that he was a Boy Scout himself. He ranked up to light scout and enjoyed every minute of it. He was always taking part in merit badges and loved winter camping. His Boy Scout troop, troop 100, would go to an airfield and have a local farmer drop off some of their hay to put in their sleeping bags to complete the winter camping experience. If you were not out of bed the next morning on time, then you along with your sleeping bag would be dragged over to a snow bank and thrown at it. Looking back at his experience in Korea, there's nothing that he, even if he could, would change. With the amount of patriotism and will to fight for his country, makes him feel not only proud but honored to have served his country. Thank you. Hi, my name is Alex and I have the pleasure of interviewing Commander Wendell Thayer. He served in Vietnam in the Navy in the construction of the Italian, also called the CVs. He served four years active duty and then afterwards he was in the reserve during which he traveled to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Poland. He spent, during his active duty, spent both time in Japan and Vietnam, especially in Da Nang. He was drafted into the war, but he chose to stay in the reserve, which really shows his dedication to his country. He enjoyed his time in Japan a lot and even though he was drafted, he found out that he really enjoyed doing his job. Thank you for your service, Commander Thayer. Hi, my name is Alex and I am a Vietnamese and my grandfather. He enlisted in the Army and became a specialist in the way in 1964. He served for three years. He was a boot camp from 1964 to 1969. He served in Germany from 1965 to 1966. He served in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967. All of his brothers served as well. His dad did too. He enlisted because of what he thought it was the right thing to do. His job was to operate all the machines. In his free time, he would go bowling or write letters to his loved ones. For him, the artist part was staying away from his loved ones. An interesting fact is he and his friend are meeting today in 1964. They both went to training together but his friend wanted to be in there before him so they got split up. Later on, he went to Vietnam and they met up. And our next interviewer could not be here either so Allie is going to read hers. This is by Karate Ganshee and she interviewed Rose Kim. Rose Kim served in the Navy and was one of the first five classes that allowed women in the naval academy. Rose Kim was in the military for nine years. Total. Four in the Naval Academy and five in San Antonio, Texas. While serving, she earned a medal for leadership. Rose Kim joined the Navy because she wanted to do something different than go to college and was excited that there was an opportunity for her to serve. She felt military training was very demanding so that the hardest part of being in the military was doing with people that did not want women to serve. Can you hear me in the back? My name is Ian and I have the honor and privilege of interviewing John Love. He is 53 years old and served in the United States Air Force where he earned the rank of Sergeant. Sergeant Love served for seven years from 1984 to 1991. During his time in the Air Force he was stationed in Germany and Florida but he had the opportunity to travel all over Europe. His work in the Air Force was centered around aircrafts. He learned a tremendous amount about planes and how to take care of them by repairing planes at base camp. He did maintenance on F-4s and F-16s, both of which are fighter jets. But most importantly, Sergeant Love was involved in implementing electronic warfare on the aircraft and radar, evading equipment, with the purpose of confusing When I asked John Love why he chose to join the United States Air Force he replied that his family inspired him so inspired him and so right after high school he joined. He also wanted to serve his country, learn new things and discover a whole new field of study. John Love is the IT or the Information Technology person here at Boysville Library. He says to when I asked John Love what I could take away from this he said that not only to me, but to all young people in this generation if you have a chance to experience or do new things, do them because you may not ever get the chance to do them again. Hi, my name is Tommy and I interviewed Chris Vilko, a sniper that served from 1992 to 1999. That is seven years of active service. Luckily he was not at war in the battlefield that much. While he was in the battlefield he went to places like Somalia Okanima Japan and Nagio his favorite was Nagio. He was a staff sergeant and he was a staff sergeant or an E-5. He enlisted because he wanted to become Marine sniper. It sounded like an interesting job and it was also exciting. He was in the US Marine Corps as a motor man then a sniper. Surprisingly he felt relaxed and focused while using his weapon. He made friends in the military that he hopes will keep in touch with him for a while. Mr. Vilko says that he takes pride in his job and wants younger people to do that too. In his office I had interviewed Bill Kolk. Bill Kolk was 50 three years old and a staff sergeant in the US Air Force National Guard. Now he's in the medical administration. He now served for 14 years. He first enlisted from 1982 to 1994. Then he returned to 2015 to now. He has served in Texas for basic training South Dakota, Iraq and Syracuse. Mr. Kolk has traveled to Iraq for overseas. His favorite place for traveling was Texas. He enlisted because his family had been in the military for generations to come. When he was cleaning an airplane he would go to clean it three times a day to check on it. To make sure there's no smushes on the glass or the airplane wasn't attacked because the person was going out to the airplane and he needed to see the wheelchair windshield. He would do this little extra effort for a key job as best he could do. On Sunday November 5th I had the honor of interviewing Melanie Nazadowski. Melanie is currently 41 years old and served for eight years from 1999 to 2007. She served in the Army National Guard and achieved the rank of Sergeant E-5 while she served. She enlisted to pay for college since not much was going on at the time. She did not choose the military as a career because she already had a full-time job when she joined. She worked for the Army National Guard part-time when she joined until she was deployed. Before she was deployed she worked as a merchandiser for Target. She never went back to her job after deployment. In basic training they would wake up at 4.30 a.m. run for two miles then do push-ups, eat breakfast, clean the barracks, train and then eat lunch. Before she was deployed she served at the Schenectady Armory later she was deployed in Iraq. While overseas she traveled to Kuwait, Babylon, Iraq and Baghdad. Her favorite place that she went to was Babylon. Deployment was very rough since she had a job and had to have a quick wedding ceremony before deployment. It was also very rough because she was dropped into a harsh foreign environment. For part of her deployment they were living in a place that had been so badly bombed that the buildings were just shelves. They had holes in the walls. There was no air conditioning. Heat were plumbing. It was 107 degrees Fahrenheit almost every day. Since they had no plumbing they would burn their pee and poop. After two weeks of being in this location someone died. So it was very very strange for them. Melanie served as a communication specialist. She was responsible for keeping track of vehicles and setting up mobile antennas. While they were there they mostly MREs or meals ready to eat. Sometimes they got burgers and veggies. One time however they went to a local settlement. They were told that they didn't want to displease the locals so they should obey the local customs. The most interesting thing Melanie ate was goat fruit that the locals gave them. In their free time they played volleyball almost every night since they had a volleyball net and they played a lot of cards. Melanie is proud that she came back with an optimistic mind. If she could change her experience she wouldn't. Melanie received three medals, one of which for Valor. When she got back she went back to school full time but ended up being a stay at home mom. Also she did an internship in the Senate for a year. It was hard for her coming home because she had to adapt and change her lifestyle and so did her family. Melanie is proud that she served. It is hard for her to explain to people what her time in the service was like because it is so different than most people's lives. She did form some very good friendships while she was there and has kept up with some of these people on Facebook. Also when she got back she had a nice wedding with her husband because the one that they had before the appointment was very rushed. Some of her friends from the military attended her wedding. Her advice for younger generations is to ask for advice on which jobs to choose in the military because there is a wide range of jobs that most people don't know about when they enlist. One interesting story that I would like to highlight is that she helped out at Ground Zero the day after September 11th. She helped search for people and clean up the rubble. The recovery from September 11th was a true test of American strength and the fact that she was a part of that was amazing. My name is Jack and I have the honor of interviewing Mr. Smithen. Mr. Smithen was a U.S. Army Specialist. He was an engineer and worked on road and bridge repair. Mr. Smithen joined the Army when he was 18 and served as an engineer and earned the rank of Specialist. Mr. Smithen told us that he was 16 when 9-11 happened and he felt he needed to do something. He also told us that he thought military would give him some good life skills so that is why he chose engineering and military. He served a total of 8 years and was active for 6. He served one year in Iraq preparing roads and bridges. Mr. Smithen told us that at times he was scared, bored, excited, and had fun. In his spare time he watched movies with his friends. Also he set up a camo net behind his barracks in between two trees and played volleyball. Also, his wife sent him a guitar so he could play with his other buddies out of guitars. He told us that he really enjoyed doing these things. He told us some of his favorite memories were basic training, people he was with, and one day when he was fixing a road these kids came up to him and once said Pizuna, which means cat. As the child handed him a rabbit's foot that had stitching as eyes and nose and mouth. When we asked Mr. Smithen what he was most proud of, he told us it was helping the people in Iraq. Returning from Iraq was hard. He sat around doing nothing while waiting for college to start. He had some of the signs of PTSD. He would have a night terrors 3 times a week and be extremely paranoid when driving. He found that he he found that when he was done serving he was different than when he went in. He told us that he had to rebuild relationships. Waiting, writing about his experiences helped him feel better. While serving the country he earned army accommodation medal, conduct medal and global war on terror. If he could change anything, he wouldn't because he likes everything the way it is. When he got back it was a little hard finding a job. He worked at a foreign after-school the Red Cross and a landscaper. Finally the business world. And I had the honor of interviewing Matt Stonzifer. Matt is an army veteran. He served in Korea and Afghanistan on the bomb squad. He served in the army for nine years. Matt started in the army after high school and thought that it gave him the discipline and structure he needed. When he was in training, he couldn't know any of the real names of the parts of the bombs. He took on his notes. Imagine studying for a test with no notes. 60% of the people failed the test in the passing grade it was 85. There was this one time where he had to stay in a truck called a Jerv and he had to stay in it for like a week or so and he didn't have any shower and he could only have two MREs a day. When he was in Korea he got to eat lots of Korean food and his favorite was bulgogi which is the Korean equivalent of a cheeseburger. He has a service dog named Hemi. He has Hemi because he has some injuries from being too close to the explosions of the bombs. Hemi can sense the feelings of Matt so if Matt gets like scared he can take Matt to say a corner of a place and get him calmed down. Besides the bulgogi, Jerv and 100 bombs disposed per year my favorite story was when Matt was in Afghanistan kind of army policemen said to him that there was a bomb behind a wall. He checked behind the wall and there was a car battery. He had a bad feeling about it so he put explosives on and blew it up and the battery went flying. Normally the battery would have been blown to pieces so he thought it had to be written something. After he came back from the military, he started his own construction business. But since he had some minor injuries, he couldn't work the full hours he needed. It is my interview and thank you for your service. My name is Dave. I was given the honor of interviewing Staff Sergeant Robert Scorger Jr. from the 2100 infantry, the first in complete division in the United States Army National Army. He decided to join the military in because of his father who was in the Air Force. Two of his friends who went to the military before him called the army because he wanted to do something great in the first country. When he had drawn the Army National Guard he wanted to use his training. Training consisted of 14 weeks of working or practice, ceremony practice, and exercises. After he completed his standard training Staff Sergeant Scorger Jr. with the M.O.S. or Military Occupational Speciality he was taught about heavy weapons specifically anti-air and anti-vehicle training time for 18 weeks. In 2003 he was deployed and sent to the base designated forward operating base in Baghdad, Iraq. When he was there his job was to prevent the enemy from destroying U.S. military convoys traveling through the region as there were soft targets and were easy for the enemy to attack. This group would lift the possible thrusts of soft targets in the area and retaliate and chase after the enemy if necessary. In order for him to do this in order for him to do this job he had to have the right equipment. This squad had a few cargo trucks and armored Humvees, a half of the Humvees equipped with M.2 branding machine guns and the other half equipped with M.19 grenade launchers. At one time a squad were doing route players for a convoy they discovered a car on the side of the road filled with 60 artillery shells and they knew it was going to be used for an attack on the convoy they were protecting. He was then given the privilege of blowing up the car and blow it up he did. He shot the car with an E.T.4 anti-tank rifle in fact the shell fired from the rifle sliced through the car blew up the artillery shells and kept going. Other than that amazing experience his favorite part of the service so far has been when he got to train in England. He was there and received urban combat training long-tough cocktail training and he got to see the sights like Stonehenge or Big Bang. He was not protecting convoy stuff started as far as back at the forward base and he was there at EA MREs but he was sent so much mac and cheese from back home they said he pretty much survived on it. Not eating the wishes of mac and cheese protecting soft targets or doing things around the base. He and his squad mates cleaned the weapons exercised, read, slept and watched movies together. He was and is still friends with about half of them to this day after returning from deployment he had to get used to civilian life being away from his squad. It was hard but he kept their meditation during teaching yoga and creating a song with the group songwriting with soldiers. And at first to write a song about his military experiences but soon realized that he was much easier than talking. You have to really tell a story. Robert is a fantastic guy and I encourage you to ask him about his experiences as he has so many great stories. Thank you. On November 12, 2017 as a Boy Scout I was honored to interview Major Amanda Conrad. In the interview I asked many questions. These are the things I learned. Major Conrad is 35 years old. He served in the NY Air National Guard. Her job was to be a navigator. She has been serving for 17 years and still serving. She served in Antarctica, New Zealand and Greenland. She enlisted to serve our country and pay for college. She decided that serving in the military would be her career because while going to college she found that serving in the military would be more fulfilling and working in the military became family. She said that basic training was hard to be away from her family stressful, rewarding and got stronger physically and mentally. While she was in Greenland it was like summer camp and training science. Antarctica had some hardships. One of them was being away from family and having no internet but it was still fun. She gave her younger generation to have pride in our country and stay engaged. In her free time she is a mom and a wife. She has a daughter. She also on weekends likes to go to movies, trips and play the violin and writing children's books. The most interesting food she ate was ants and rabbits. The vehicle she used is an LC-130 and the interesting fact about them is they used rockets to take off in the snow. She has helped with medical evacuations in Afghanistan. She has got many medals. The air flying medal which was for flying more than 20 combat missions, the Antarctic service medal which was for working in Antarctica and last but not least women which was for shooting at M-16 well. Finally her most proud thing she has done is supporting science research and Antarctic out in Greenland helping combat troops overseas and supporting emergency efforts for New York City. My name is Marley and I interview Deborah Gardner who is 51 years old. Deborah is a senior master sergeant for 14 years and is currently serving in the Air Force for 18 years. She has been serving for 32 years. When she was in the Marines she traveled to many different places like Japan, Korea, Philippine islands and many states across America. In the Air Force she traveled to Antarctica and many other states across America. Deborah joined the military because she wanted to serve her country. While Deborah was in the Marines the most challenging thing for her was the flight training because she was in her unit and she didn't want to feel because people would think women are weak so knowing that they gave her the strength to pass. Something I found interesting that Deborah told me was she likes to try to eat in every place she goes. She said in New Zealand she had octopus, kangaroo and alligator. She said it tasted a lot like chicken but just a little bit tougher. While Deborah is not fighting for her country she is a higher-patterned chicken's connectivity. She also goes to school and loves to eat and write. Thank you for your service Deborah in the meantime. Hello, my name is Cody and I have the privilege of interviewing Christopher Longo. He is currently serving in the Army. He has served in the military for 21 years and plans to serve for a total of 25 years. Chris joined the Navy and then he switched over to the Air Force when he was finished with the Air Force he retired from the military for about 13 years before he was convinced he wanted to join the Army. The reason he enlisted was because he had the drive and wanted to do something. Christopher served all over the world in the USA but his two top favorite places were Germany and Sicily which if you don't know where that is it's off the coast of Italy. Something about Christopher is when he joined the military he didn't tell his family for three whole days. If he could change one thing in his military career he would have never taken the 13 year break. Christopher's words of wisdom are to make a list of all the things you want to do in your life so you can slowly work towards your goals and slowly accomplish them. Christopher has done a lot of interesting things but that's just a few so I recommend you ask him about his interesting career. As a boy scout I was fortunate to have been able to learn about veterans. I learned about veterans from interviewing Captain Veronica McClellan. Captain McClellan was 18 years old when she enlisted in the service. When she was a little girl she wanted to be a nurse so she became a nurse in the military. The reason she enlisted was to serve our country and help soldiers as a nurse. The captain told me that basic training was a lot of running and crawling. While she was in the service she earned her rank as captain. She has been active in active service for 28 years. One of the places she served was in Haiti. This was one of her most rewarding experiences. She went to help after big earthquake. When she was there she also helped rebuild schools and used a little bulldozer. When she was there she was a nurse. She told me that there are people in line for six miles waiting to have a check of me. In Italy a bus broke down. She helped the kids on the bus and gave them water while other soldiers were fixing the bus. She also was in Germany when she was there she told me that she helped in the conflict. I thought that could have been scary and it was where she was done. She said that they drove and flew to get two places. Overall I enjoyed the night and learning about veterans. I was really excited to learn about what happened and what they did. Hi everybody, my name is Olivia and I had the privilege of interviewing Darcy Novak. She's 44 years old and she's a master sergeant in the Air Force. She had many jobs within the military including positions in communications, international guard security and she now has a job in personnel. Darcy enlisted into the military out of high school in 1991 and was placed in communications which she worked for 10 years. She was in the security department after the tragic event of 9-11 where she became a squad leader of 14 guys for 14 years. In her current job Darcy works in personnel in the human resources department where she has had a full-time job since 2014. Darcy served in many places including Tinker Base, Oklahoma, Belgium, Kelly, Texas and is currently serving in Rome Labs, New York. She loved all the places that she traveled and she told me that her favorite was Belgium because she fortunately had family there that she could visit on occasion and it was so close to many other places and countries that she was able to travel and taste many new foods and experience many new cultures. Darcy enlisted right out of high school and she enlisted because she really didn't know what she wanted to do. She decided on joining the military because it was a good option for her in the Navy excuse me and growing up she looked up to him and she saw that he really enjoyed it. She decided on the Air Force because unlike other branches the Navy frightened her especially being surrounded by water she since has really enjoyed her decision. While interviewing Darcy one story that I found really interesting is how Darcy felt most proud about serving her country. She was deployed overseas and while in assignment her troop had an IDD in the comfy she was in the top hatch and was blown out of the vehicle. She suffered muscle trauma and some intense back and neck pain while in the hospital and during her recovery she received an email from her head sergeant the email wrote about how proud she was of Darcy and Darcy since then received high praise and began taking her second niece on life. She also realized for herself that everything happens for a reason. After this experience Darcy felt truly proud of what she was doing throughout the country. Thank you Darcy. Hi I'm Michael and I have the privilege of interviewing Chief Master Sergeant E9 Vincent Princiato. Mr. Princiato's brother-in-law had a large influence on his decision to join the Air Force joining on May 7th 1985. Mr. Princiato is going on his 33rd year of service. Mr. Princiato is based out of Schenectady, New York of a team that conducts annual trips to Antarctica. He and his team work to fuel and load the planes and stay mission capable for landing on the biggest desert in the world. He and his team work to fuel and load planes and once landing in Antarctica the priority becomes unloading researchers and taking off within 45 minutes so the plane engines don't freeze. That's not a lot of time. The plane has an orange tip so that if the plane gets buried it is still visible in the snow. The plane also possesses skis in order to land on the snowy terrain. Mr. Princiato's most memorable experience in the service was in 2005 during the height of the Iraq War. While stationed on a base east of Baghdad, Mr. Princiato had to fly in and out of the base with supply. Having to shut off the engines of power and sight during the night and coast in undetected avoiding to being seen. While sleeping, mortar fire from enemies outside the base shook the ground and could be heard throughout the night. I appreciated this opportunity to meet and learn from an active serviceman and to learn about the experiences our military engaged in. Thank you for your service. My name is Kelly and I am the honor of interviewing Chris Spencer with Eagle Scout. He has served in the Army for 23 years so far after training to drive and use a gun on a tank becoming a nuclear, biological and chemical officer to train to fly a helicopter. He is now a UH 60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Chris has served all over the world including Canada, Kuwait, Pakistan, Iran, Honduras was his favorite place because he was able to build schools for the children there. Also one time he got caught in a sandstorm in Iran and he forgot to cover his ears and sand was in his ears for a week. This is because he wanted to get back to his country and because his father encouraged him to. His father was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam War. Time for training. He was dropped off as a remote part of Alabama and he had a story he could not tell his officers. When he was captured the officers interrogated him and the other soldiers to tell the story. They did this to show what it was like to be awarded. Some soldiers quit then but Chris did not stop to become the person he is today. I thank Chris for his service. Daniel, can you speak really loudly? Can you speak loudly? You can. My name is Daniel and I am the honor of interviewing Jason Zealov. Jason Zealov is 41 years old and is ranked a major in the military. Jason is in the Air Force slash the National Guard. He is currently a deputy commander. He has served 21 years total. 6 years enlisted and 15 years as an officer. He enlisted because his family had a lot of veterans such as his father and his grandfather. Basic training for him was difficult but he had a good drill instructor who was fair. There were lots of early mornings and late nights and there were many things to do. Jason has served in Switzerland, Germany, Greenland and Switzerland. He got to those locations by flight. While in the military he used machinery such as forklifts, buses and trucks. He traveled to Austria, Holland, France, Belgium and more. His favorite was Amsterdam during New Years. Some of Jason's favorite moments were working with professional people and people with high moral code and values. He enjoyed the excitement and possibility of being deployed. In his free time he spent three hours a day while traveling Jason has a zebra, gazelle crocodile, ostrich and bone. Thank you all for your service. Education with Colleen Zilif and together some military care packages. We have a very generous community and we received a thank you from the first packages that were sent out from these men and women in uniform and thank you to all of them. And also we did another collection Soldiers Angels Treats for True. Adults in the community donated 136 pounds of their Halloween candy to treat our veterans at the Stratton VA Medical Center and my colleague Debbie Sturmklarna next week. Thanks to the teens care group who spent their half day off from school making treats for visitors to the Fisher House of the Stratton VA Medical Center. The teens baked 40 pumpkin muffins and 28 cake bites. They also made 50 chocolate treats packaged to everything and even washed the dishes. Thanks to the many people who helped make this series of programs at the Voorheesville Public Library such an enriching experience for our community. Thanks to the school district thanks to the Boy Scouts the Girl Scouts and the staff. I'm really proud of the boys and the girls who interviewed. They really took this project seriously and they really showed a lot of respect as they should to the men in uniform who keep us safe here in America. And right now we are going to have a short intermission. There's lovely refreshments provided by our friends of the library. So I think we've been sitting long enough to use the restroom to get some refreshments. Thank you.