Questions for Veronica Kavass

What drew you to this project?

I got involved with the Last Good War knowing I would be hearing about a time when time stopped. The world came to a screeching halt for everyone involved—Jews in concentration camps, Japanese soldiers in kamikaze planes, young American widows, merchant marines, teenage Nazis, so on and so forth. The veterans I interviewed were required to remember a time long ago, when they were young and possibly facing the end of their lives. I wondered what it would be like to recall the time when their hearts were beating so quickly. I was curious to hear the first imagery that came to mind, the happiest memory during dark times, what it felt like when time resumed its regular course...

The Last Good War is a mixture of photography and oral history. What does this book offer that conventional histories of WWII don't?

The ability to witness how history is personally rewritten. No matter how objective historical accounts are, they come from emotional, judgmental beings. That's all good and fine except they can't be taken "seriously" if they reveal emotion and judgement. LGW is all about the emotional, opinionated, real accounts. Readers learn why certain veterans revered General Patton while others despised him. Also, there is the ability to learn about the effect of absent histories that didn't emerge until much later in the 20th century.

    I think of Ted Lumpkin's statement on returning to the US from fighting with the Tuskegee Airmen in Europe:

"When we got back here, nobody believed it had actually happened. It's not like the newspapers or radios talked about it. If you looked at history books or anything official, you didn't see it. There was nothing that you could point to. It's not that people didn't believe you; it's just that they didn't see it confirmed or discussed anywhere."

How did you find the veterans pictured in The Last Good War? How many of them came from the Belmont retirement communities, and where did you find the others?

Tom Sanders found and photographed most of the veterans before I was brought in to the project. After I started my process, we began reaching for stories (veterans) that we wanted to be present in the book. For example, I was determined to talk to a female pilot. Looking for specific representatives involved a lot of research. I would say that Belmont Community presented us with a great majority of the veterans.

Was there a particular veteran or story that stood out to you in the course of taking pictures/talking to veterans? What person or story made the biggest impression?

This is tough to answer but I'd say that I could talk to Edgar Cole for hours on end. He was a very sharp and funny storyteller. His background includes a great deal of struggle and determination. He weaved in and out of various moods while telling me what it was like to be one of the few black marines during world war II. He had a lot of moxy and kept making me laugh.

Were there any common threads that you noticed—things that tied together the different veterans that you photographed and interviewed?

Yes, as I stated in my preface:

After twenty interviews I began tracing patterns. There was a surprising number of plane crash survivals. Poor eyesight disallowing entrance into the Navy or Air Force was another very common pattern. I heard echoes: "You aren't scared of death when you are eighteen." Along with, "Anyone who said they weren't scared, was lying." Nearly everyone I interviewed was proud to serve in the war. A majority considered our current war a complete mess. One thing I know about storytelling is that there is a tendency to leave out the parts we don't understand. But when someone decides to come face-to-face with it while telling the story, it always enriches the narration. Like when Sumner Glimcher explained why he could no longer shoot his rifle after seeing his first dead American soldier. It is hard to admit to being a soldier who pretended to pull the trigger, but he did, and it made his story stronger.

What surprised you most in the course of the project?

After speaking to over 50 veterans I have a very visual sense of WWII. This is surprising to me because multiple books and movies over the years have stored innumerable, graphic images into my mind. During the course of this project, most of those were wiped out and replaced with new ones provided by the veterans' descriptions. I see new details such as a jacket patch (Disney's boxcar with wings). Now when I think of the bombing of Hiroshima, I think about the plane who gave Enola Gay the weather report and the clear blue sky the pilot faced as he flew away from Japan. I think about spiffy female code breakers staring at random numerical numbers with intensity.

On and on it goes—a whole patchwork quilt of selected clips from their stories.

It seems that one goal of this project is to raise awareness of WWII veterans and keep the war from being forgotten. Do you feel that the war is largely unremembered today?

World War II is remembered and referred to a great deal, but I feel that younger generations are losing grasp of it. In considering this question about awareness, I ponder over how I would teach a child about WWII. Where would I begin? Hitler? Pearl Harbor? Would I attempt to teach a child about fascism? Would I start with the subject of political greed? Charismatic leadership? Would I start by making a declaration: There is no such thing as a good war, but there are wars that are fought for good causes. I think I will get a much better sense of the degree of awareness while I am out on the tour. Then I can properly answer this.

What other ways are there for us to honor veterans and keep their memories alive?

Singing used to work back in the day. Now we are living in a much more visual culture with a short attention span. Short video interviews with veterans—all archived in a beautiful and easily accessible way.

Do you have a personal or family connection to WWII?

Yes, my father was a little boy in Latvia when WWII broke out. His family was mainly persecuted by the Russians but Latvia had the unfortunate position of being in a tug-of-war between Russia and Germany. He and his family migrated to Australia during the war.

The veterans interviewed in your book include many with less-well-known wartime experiences, such as women who served in the military, and African American vets who served in segregated units. Was representing a diverse set of veterans a priority for you in assembling this collection?

Yes it was. It was a tricky process though. A majority of the people who served in the war were white men (if I have my numbers right). Thus, a majority of the veterans left to talk to represented that demographic. Being a minority myself, I felt like it was very important to get the stories from people like Ted Lumpkin and Cedric Shimo. Furthermore, stories from the ensconced voices tend to be very strong.