By Judy Sopronyi

A simple tape recorder is all you need. If you don’t have one, look around. You may have a combination radio and cassette player that has a port for a microphone. Or borrow the neighbor’s. You could also set up a video camera to record your conversation; that will give you the bonus of facial expressions and body language for the record. Also consider having someone take snapshots during the interview.

The recording equipment may make your subject nervous at first, so don’t call attention to it by fiddling with it or looking at it frequently. Have some other things on the table by the recorder so it’s not so obvious. Remind your interviewee that you can’t possibly write fast enough to get everything down, and you’d rather listen to what he says than be busy trying to take notes. Sooner than you might expect, the recording equipment will become a non-issue.

If you can’t interview the veteran in person, you can do it over the phone. You can use a speaker phone so the tape recorder can pick up the conversation, or buy an inexpensive adapter that allows you to divert the phone’s audio signal directly into the tape recorder, while still allowing you to use the phone normally—these are available at electronics stores. Be sure the veteran knows you’re making a recording.

It seems too obvious to say, but test your equipment before you begin. Otherwise, you risk the disappointment of having a great talk but no record of it.

Though we like to think our electronic records will last forever, they may not. If you want to have a truly permanent record, transcribe the conversation and print it on acid-free paper, or at least paper with a high rag content—most print shops and copy shops carry it. If you want to include images of any photos or documents, copy those on the same high-quality paper.

Remember to make copies for the veteran and the important people in his life. And consider sending copies or transcripts to a historical archive, such as the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress (see www.loc.gov/vets/ for details).

Photo: The author’s father-in-law, Michael Sopronyi, a wartime 1st lieutenant in the 494th Bomb Squadron of the 9th Air Force, at the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.

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