Above: Me, my father, Maj. Arthur Fager, and my grandfather, E. P. Fager

The Fager Military History (working title) is a documentary that contains first-hand accounts from three generations of military veterans. The Fager’s military history stretches back five generations to the Civil War. It includes most of the major conflicts; the Civil War, both World Wars, Vietnam, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Army, Navy, Marines, and the Army Air Corps (which later became the Air Force) are all represented. This documentary is a loosely related series that can be heard as a whole or as self-contained installments. Each episode will contain a short introduction followed by an anecdote from the service member who is featured in the piece.

It is not difficult to find military records on a family member. These records list when and where they served, awards they may have received, etc. That is not the goal of this documentary. The focus of this documentary is to collect the stories from the service members themselves. This preserves more than just the factual records. It gives insight into the personality of the subject. Rather than just reading the story or hearing it told second-hand. Listeners get to hear the history from those who lived through it. This includes all the nuances of the storytellers’ voices. The common thread that runs through the series is the storytellers’ relation to the creator of the series, and each other. This will build a cast of characters whose stories overlap, share common themes, and influence each other in various ways. There is a unique opportunity to hear similar overlapping stories from multiple points of view.

This link leads to the first of installment of the series.

Fager Documentary Ep. 1

I have decided to compile an audio record of some of my family's military history. I guess you could call it an audio documentary, though I would almost consider it more of an oral history. The idea was first developed for a class. We have to create a 5-8 minute audio documentary. I was going to attempt to cover this history  in that amount of time. The difficulty being: as I devoted more thought to it, I became almost instantly aware of the fact that with that time constraint I would have little time to do more than briefly introduce each family member. At which point I decided that I would devote a segment of similar length to each member of my family.

That was my plan as I headed in to my first interview with my grandfather a veteran of the Second World War. I started the interview as one normally does asking for him to identify himself, give his age and a short background. He started with what I asked for and then continued telling the stories of his military career for the next two hours without me having to ask another question. It was fantastic! The stories were enthralling, (at least to me) so I just sat and listened.

As I was leaving the interview I found myself wondering how I was going to possibly condense two hours' worth of stories into a single segment. To do any sort of justice to it would be impossible, so I decided to narrow my scope again. So for the first installment of this oral history I have chosen a single episode from my Grandfather's time in the Pacific Islands.