“There are benefits if there are more people writing about their participation in momentous events”
In my last trip to Manila two weeks ago, Ret. Major General Jose Magno — or JoeMag for short to all his friends and colleagues – invited me to a social event which turned out to be a gathering of Vietnam War veterans.
Given that it was a Friday and traffic is always bad on Fridays, I was hesitant to go.
But, as it developed, the party turned out to be quite a ball.
This is because when old fogeys like myself congregate, it always turns out to be the usual repetitive recollection of events with a few added flavors that have been told many times before.
Aside from the Second World War, Vietnam and the Korean Wars, there are still many important and significant stories waiting to be told.
We have the CPP/NPA insurgency, the Islamic secessionist military campaigns in Mindanao and our many recent political upheavals resulting in Presidents leaving abruptly that will have to be written by those who participated in those historical events.
Indeed, the accounts that have been published about the events of 1986 and that of 2001 were mostly by academics and not by direct participants.
The same is true with the many coup attempts from 2001 to 2004.
There are, therefore, many stories to write that could fill a small library and many men in uniform who are now veterans participated in those historic events.
Unfortunately, not many of those who have stories to tell never took the time to write their stories or were simply unable which is knowledge lost for appreciation by the whole nation.
I have written about this many times that we are losing valuable knowledge because for one reason or another we Filipinos do not seem to want to write our life experiences and share them with the public. Perhaps, one reason why participants are hesitant to write their stories is because of the effect it might have on their careers.
This is understandable. But after retirement, one should be able to write anything without fear.
In other countries like the United States, it is the other way around.
Every incident is followed by a book. There are just too many people wanting to write no matter how insignificant one’s participation is in an event.
Although the social gathering was also intended to disseminate the latest news on veterans affairs, one major topic among those who were there was how to encourage those remaining veterans to find a way to record their experiences not only for their families but also for posterity.
I suggested one simple way of doing this is to get a video camera, sit in front of it and just talk no matter how long.
That way, there will be a record.
One problem, however, is where does one send the recording?
If the planned President Fidel V. Ramos Presidential Library becomes a reality, then these recordings can be sent there.
If not, perhaps the PVAO should add this as one of its duties.
PVAO should create a team to go from veteran to veteran doing all the recordings and filing them for future military researchers before all these veterans are gone.
My batch mate former Philippine Veterans Administration Office head Ret. Lt. General Nesty Carolina who was there at the gathering said he started something similar but it must be formalize with a team from PVAO going around doing the interviews.
Also in that gathering, former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita who is a Vietnam veteran and a Ret. Lt. General in the Army, distributed copies of his book Soldier Peacemaker about his work and experiences to everyone.
He is one of the few that I know who has taken the time and effort to write.
Another book distributed was Warriors for Peace by Ben Cal which is all about the Philippine Civic Action activities in Tay Ninh province in Vietnam where the PhilCag was assigned during their stay in Vietnam.
JoeMag also mentioned he has a long video recording of himself during his time with the late President Ramos, starting from their time in the Special Forces to their time in Fort Bragg, now called Fort Liberty.
So, it seems there are already some veterans doing it.
All that has to be done is for PVAO to draft a plan to operationalize the activity.
There are benefits if there are more people writing about their participation in momentous events.
One is that such books or records will serve as a counter weight to people who want to revise history to suit their own agenda like politics or simply wanting to look good for posterity.
But with many books, this becomes harder to do.
It is always healthier if there are more interpretations of historical events.
The mission therefore is to get people to start writing more.
If we look at our country’s record when it comes to yearly publications, it is not exemplary compared to our neighbors.
For the year 2015, we only had 9,480 publications compared to Indonesia in 2020 with 135,081 or Vietnam at 24,589.
Malaysia had 15,354 in 2015 while Singapore with very much less population had 12,000 for the year 2007.
Only Thailand appear to have less than what we had with 6,750 in 2018.
With the size of our population, we should be publishing three or four times more.
Encouraging our veterans to try to start writing may not be enough.
For one, not everyone is gifted with the talent to write.
Some were hoping the PFVR presidential library will go thru so that it will become a repository of the papers of many high ranking military men who have retired and are looking where to store their records.
But the library has to be constructed first.
With no one available to take the lead, PVAO is the only logical agency to undertake such an effort.
It is basically like what one private non-profit organization is doing in Europe and the United States, going around interviewing every living veteran to preserve their oral history.