T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Iowa Veterans Home resident and Silver Star recipient Jim Ross, left, who served as a Navy corpsman during the Vietnam War, converses with Iowa Valley — Grinnell student and current National Guardsman Sam Greiner, right, in preparation for a video interview series with six veterans filmed on the IVH campus Friday. The videos, which are being created as a partnership between IVH, IVCCD and the office of Sen. Joni Ernst, will eventually be archived in the Library of Congress.

Every veteran has a story, and in the Red, White and Blue Capital of Iowa, representatives from various organizations and entities work to tell them.

On Friday morning, staff and students from the Iowa Valley Community College District’s (IVCCD’s) Marshalltown and Grinnell campuses, in conjunction with Sen. Joni Ernst’s Special Assistant for Veteran and Military Affairs Brenda Safranski and leaders at the Iowa Veterans Home (IVH), conducted interviews with six Vietnam era veterans across several branches of the military that will eventually be archived in the Library of Congress and publicly available for anyone to view.

“We’ve got heroes that walk the hallways of the Iowa Veterans Home, and it’s awesome to be able to just capture the stories of some of those veterans for future generations. And without the effort, this combined effort, those stories would never be told,” Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs Commandant Todd Jacobus said. “So ultimately, these stories are gonna end up in the Library of Congress and on other platforms where people are gonna learn about, you know, this is the sacrifice that is made on our behalf in order to live in this awesome country that we know as the United States of America.”

IVCCD Director of Marketing Julie Eastridge also spoke of the great opportunity the project provided for students like Montana Morgan, the son of a veteran who served as an intern under Iowa Valley Digital Media Specialist Josh Benda and worked on the video production side of things.

Eastridge said Safranski reached out to Benda and got the ball rolling.

“I tell you what, from the first email, we were super, super honored to be asked and looped into a project like this. Like the commandant said, there are so many heroes that are here, and they just look like everyday people. And it’s really fun to have a part in telling their stories and keeping this bit of history alive,” Eastridge said.

Benda was equally appreciative of the opportunity.

“I was honored to be tapped to film this veteran’s history project. I really enjoyed listening to the stories, and I’m glad I get to help preserve them for generations to come,” he said.

Morgan, who hails from Osceola, grew up hearing his father’s Navy stories, and he appreciated the opportunity to hear from other veterans as well as learning more about the behind the scenes video work in the process.

Jacobus has spent much of his tenure leading IVH listening to the stories of the men and women who call the facility home, and he firmly believes there are still more to be told — and that the community at large would be “very interested” in hearing.

“A lot of it has to do with having the willingness to share that story. You’ll hear the story of one of these gentlemen that, as of today, he decided ‘I am not doing it,’ because it’s a very emotional story. So it took the encouragement of staff that he trusts to go in and reinforce that ‘Hey, you know, you’re not telling this story for you only. You’re telling this story so that people understand what it is that you did and the huge sacrifice that you made’ — that has affected the rest of his life, truly, and has affected the person that he is today,'” Jacobus said. “And there are a lot of stories like that out there, not just at the Iowa Veterans Home but across the entire state and country, that really need to get told. Just think of how many stories are not out there, that we’ll never hear, because we’re down to three WWII veterans that live here. At one time, there were around 600.”

Eastridge praised Jacobus and his staff for building that trust with the residents and encouraging them to share their stories. The veteran referenced in the above quote is Jim Ross, a Vietnam veteran who earned a Silver Star as a Navy corpsman, and another unique opportunity the experience provided was the chance for two IVCCD-Grinnell students in the gunsmithing program who are currently serving in the National Guard — Sam Greiner from Keota and and Bryan Zeisneiss of Hubbard — to be involved in the interviews and ask questions of the older veterans. Zeisneiss joked that in the past, he had only participated in interrogations, and Greiner commented that he had joined the military after the end of the war in Afghanistan in 2021 and appreciated hearing from veterans who had gone into combat.

“Nowadays, in training, we train for going in and coming back, but those guys, they’re going, and they ain’t coming back until the war’s over,” Greiner said.

Zeisneiss was amazed by the altruism of one of the interview subjects, 101-year-old Ralph Alshouse, who flew many dangerous stateside missions as a Navy ferry pilot during WWII (making 13 forced landings), and his interest in learning more about Zeisneiss’s own military service.

“(He was) just being selfless and taking everybody else’s story into consideration too,” Zeisneiss said.

Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak who is the first female combat veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate, is proud to be involved in the project.

“As a combat veteran who served for 23 years in our military, I am forever grateful to the selfless service members who have valiantly fought to protect our great nation. The Veteran History Project is an especially meaningful way to honor their service, document their experiences, and ensure their wisdom is passed on to future generations,” she said. “I want to thank every veteran that took the time to share their stories, as well as our partners at the Iowa Valley Community College District and the Iowa Veterans Home for helping make this project a reality.”