Nickel for Your Story
Our Veteran’s Oral History Program
Our veteran’s oral history program, Nickel for Your Story, makes recordings of the stories of individual United States military veterans with roots in central Virginia. We preserve these invaluable and increasingly rare accounts for future generations. We started with interviews from the WWII era and currently are interviewing those who served in the WWII, Korea, and Vietnam eras. The name of the program derives from our first group of WWII veterans who recalled a time when a nickel paid for a hot cup of coffee. The Jefferson nickels represent central Virginia with Jefferson and Monticello depicted on the two sides of the coin.
Service-related stories are priceless to veteran families as well as to historians because each veteran, no matter where and in what position they served, has a unique insight into history, and their story, in part, defines this nation. To date, ParadeRest has deposited more than 75 recorded interviews with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, to be archived for future generations.
Learn more about the Nickel for Your Story program here.
Senator Mark Warner with interviewees James Kavanaugh, MD (left) and Monk Bingler (right) with the ParadeRest team. The duffel bag contains recorded interviews for Warner to present to the Library of Congress.
This trailer highlights the support of the University of Virginia for those who serve.
Sign up for Interview
If you are interested in being interviewed, please complete the following form.
US Army Signal Corps Tec-4 Elvin Harley receiving a kiss from a French child, while listening to the US 9th Armored Division Band near Aboncourt in the Moselle Department of Lorraine in the Northeast.
Photo taken on February 14th, 1945 by Tec-5 L.G. Crabtree, U.S. Signal Corps
If you have any questions or are interested in becoming involved with or contributing to our narrative veteran history project for the Library of Congress, please contact us at history@paraderestva.org. You can also call us at 434-234-9795.
National Public Radio (NPR) interviewed Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a member of the ParadeRest board, about the Nickel for Your Story program.
“The Staff of the Library of Congress Veterans History Project appreciates all of its volunteers for their participation and dedication to collecting the treasured stories of our nation’s veterans. We especially would like to thank ParadeRest Virginia for the role you played in helping VHP reach the important milestone of more than 100,000 archived collections.”
— STAFF OF THE LoC VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT