War Veterans Share Their Untold Stories – Before Its Too Late
by Robert Nolin
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla–Combat veterans are notoriously reticent about recounting their experiences.
Former Marine Cpl. Ed Kennedy says there's a perfectly good reason: "A lot of them, they don't talk about it because they've never been asked."
But this week, filmmaker Larry Cappetto will be doing the asking, and Kennedy, 76, of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, will do a lot of talking about his year and a half in Korea, where he served in a communications unit.
Cappetto is in the midst of taping the sixth and seventh films of his Lest They Be Forgotten series in which veterans discuss their war experience. Kennedy, a Broward County commissioner from 1984 to 1992, will be among at least eight local veterans who will spin their yarns to Cappetto on Wednesday and Thursday.
"From a historical perspective I think it's important," Kennedy said of the taping. "I think the young kids are not exposed to these kinds of things."
Preserving veterans' stories is Cappetto's motive for producing the series he started four years ago in Phoenix. The 49-year-old independent filmmaker from Grand Junction, Colo., has interviewed more than 300 vets all over the country for the five movies he's completed…
"What's important to these veterans is that somebody take the time to care and listen to them," Cappetto said. "For me it's an honor to leave this legacy for our families and our younger generation."
It's also a fulltime job for Cappetto, who travels about two weeks a month collecting interviews. The most intense labor is editing his footage: He will chop 60 hours of interviews into 60 minutes of usable tape. World War II vets are dying at the rate of about 1,100 a day, Cappetto said, and it's essential to record them now. "When these guys die, their stories go with them," he said.
The Selected Independent Funeral Homes, a national morticians' association, sponsors Cappetto's series, and assists in screening them at veterans memorial programs in schools, churches and funeral parlors. Cappetto, who runs the camera and sound himself, speaks at schools several times a year. Locally, the T.M. Ralph Funeral Home in Sunrise is paying Cappetto's travel expenses and providing a location for him to film.
On this trip, his fifth to South Florida, Cappetto is seeking to record veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars, the subjects of his sixth and seventh films respectively. He has previously concentrated on World War II's Normandy and Iwo Jima invasions.
Cappetto uses no narration in his films, but rather lets veterans tell the tales in their own words. The memories can stir deep feelings. "They tell me stuff they never told their wives, they never told their children," he said. "It's very powerful to see these veterans display emotions."
Veterans who wish to tell their stories may contact Cappetto at 970-254-9262, or www.veteranshistory.org.
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