Matt Gaetz holding event to preserve veterans’ history

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz will spend Saturday hearing from Northwest Florida’s military heroes as part of an initiative to preserve veterans’ unique experiences and document their stories for future generations.

The Veterans History Project event will be held at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition’s Levin Center in Pensacola starting at 11 a.m.

An announcement from the Panhandle Republican’s office said local veterans who served in multiple conflicts, including World War II and the Vietnam War, will be at the event.

The Veterans History Project encourages veterans, who served in any capacity and with any rank, to contribute to the project through recounting their experiences and submitting documents, photographs, and additional supplemental materials to preserve a vibrant history of their service. All materials and accounts will then be permanently preserved in the Library of Congress.

The Veterans History Project was launched by Congress in 2000 and includes submissions from every U.S. state and territory, and many of the submissions are accessible online. It is a part of the American Folklife Center.

The Veterans History Project database currently includes nearly 6,000 accounts from Florida veterans, 2,600 of which have been added to the project’s digital collection.