Staff Reports
This week CBS News pulled back the curtain on something both simple and heroic: a 28-year-old named Rishi Sharma has spent the last decade recording the memories of World War II veterans. The profile shows he has logged more than 3,000 video interviews through his nonprofit, Remember WWII, and he’s still on the road. If you want a lesson in grit, respect for history, and how one person can fill a gap the rest of us ignored, pay attention.
Why these interviews matter now
The clock on the “Greatest Generation” is not slowing. The National WWII Museum, citing Department of Veterans Affairs figures, reports roughly 45,418 living U.S. World War II veterans; other outlets cite lower numbers — CBS referenced about 30,000. Call it 30 to 45 thousand: either way, the numbers drop fast and the stories are vanishing. When a Marine like Nils Mockler can still say, “the hair on my arms still stands up,” we lose more than a trick of memory — we lose firsthand proof of what sacrifice looks like.
How one young man is filling the gap
Sharma started this as a teenager, driving his Southern California neighborhood to find veterans and keep asking questions. Ten years later he’s recorded thousands of interviews, gives copies to families, and funds the trips with donations through Remember WWII. This is grassroots history: video testimony, taped with respect, delivered to relatives and to public memory. If you want a real museum of democracy, start with the accounts of those who bled for it.
Institutions should follow the lead — and fast
It’s flattering to praise lone heroes, but the real shock is that a single young man is doing work large institutions should be doing. Museums, the VA, veterans groups, and philanthropic foundations ought to be backing this work with grants, archival help, and nationwide coordination. Conservatives ought to applaud private initiative, yes — but we should also push civic institutions to stop treating the Greatest Generation like a dusty footnote and start preserving their testimony properly.
Honor, preserve, and act
The CBS feature is a wake-up call: preserve these stories now or let them disappear. Support Remember WWII, volunteer at local VFW posts, and ask local leaders to fund oral-history projects. Sharma’s work is an example of courage in a quieter form — not combat, but conscience. If we want our kids to know what liberty cost, we can’t outsource memory to goodwill alone; we must act while we still can.
