From Here to History
History is a story we tell ourselves about the past. We all know that story often shapes our present world but, just as often, our present world shapes how we tell that story. In this show, Chris and Jason discuss events and people of the past with as much openness, understanding, and fairness as we can muster. Our only agenda is to inform in an entertaining and engaging way.
We teach high school, after all, and that's a tough audience. Our hope is that if we can keep teenagers interested we may be able to pull off a worthwhile podcast, too.
Episodes are topical rather than chronological and we try to release one episode every month. But we're teachers with busy young families in addition to being podcasters. So if we go a little longer than that between episodes, bear with us!
From Here to History
Big War, Small Town
The Vietnam War era is often remembered as the most divisive conflict in US history. In classes across the US students will learn about the draft, the internal divisions in the US over civil rights, imperialism, and the Cold War. Those are all important. Far less often, if at all, will students learn about the individual soldiers who went off to fight in the war.
In this episode, Chris and Jason interview their long time friend Steve Quesinberry. Steve just wrote a book that traces the lives of 23 boys from our local county who went to Vietnam and never came home. He didn't just tell their war stories, he attempted to tell each individual's life story. And in the process, he demonstrated how large geo-political events in far away places can have lasting impacts on so many anonymous people in small towns all across America.
Buy the book on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Better-Men-Coweta-Georgia-Vietnam/dp/B0BJ4QSGPZ
We are grateful, as always, to our producer, Nate Davidson