StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative provides a platform for veterans, service members, and military families to share their stories.
Last spring, the project came to the Tampa Bay area to record, and twelve veterans took part. Their stories are now preserved at the Library of Congress and as part of StoryCorps' online archive for WUSF.
We carefully selected and arranged some of the best moments from four of their stories.
Marvin Leibson served on the Pacific front in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
He was a combat engineer in New Guinea, Guam and the Philippines, where he repaired runways bombed by the Japanese army.
He later became an engineer and worked at a Navy atomic lab in Pittsburgh building nuclear submarines. He was also active in his temple, Masons, Shriners and Habitat for Humanity.
At age 100, Leibson spoke with his son, Larry Leibson.
Marvin Leibson died in October at age 101.
Sean Coffman and Carlos Diaz Serrano are friends and colleagues who reflected on their military careers.
Coffman has worked at US Central Command in Tampa and served as a Green Beret - Army Special Forces officer. He now lives in Lakeland.
Serrano is from Puerto Rico and retired in Tampa after serving in the Air Force as a communications officer.
Andrew Walker spoke with his father, 100-year-old Mordecai Walker of Citrus Park, about his military experience during World War II.
Sgt. Walker served in New Guinea. He later spent decades as an agriculture teacher in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties.
Mordecai Walker was born on the 4th of July. He died in August at the age of 101.
Friends and colleagues Derrick Smith and Susy Bogdan have their military service and careers as government civilians in common.
Smith is a retired sergeant major in the US Army. Bogdan served 20 years in the Air Force.
They worked together at the Joint Special Operations University at MacDill Air Force Base.
