The Stories Behind the Stars project is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 421,000+ of the US World War II fallen servicemen and women who have a gold star on the National WWII Memorial. Stories are posted on the military records website, Fold3.com of these courageous men and women who died while in service to our country during World War II.
The project was started in 2016 by Don Milne with the idea to write one story on one serviceman or woman a day from his state of Utah. He was inspired by the news coverage surrounding the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. He started with a blog and a Facebook page. He was up to 3 million total reads on his posts and sometimes up to 6,000 readers a day. He eventually had some helpers join him.
His goal to write stories for the entire United States needed additional helpers. He realized he could not reach his goal without starting a larger project. Launched in 2020, the non-profit project gained early support from Ancestry.com which owns Newspapers.com and Fold3.com where volunteers access publicly available information. Current sponsors include many other organizations including the National WWII Memorial.
As of July 2022, the project has more than 1,000 volunteers and 17,000 stories have been completed so far.
Jean Cockle of Door County is the Wisconsin state coordinator for the project. As of July 2022, there have been 250 stories written for Wisconsin by 25 current volunteers. She is working on compiling a complete list of the state’s WWII Fallen servicemen and women and is always looking for more volunteers. Volunteers can work on stories for any state and don’t need to make a commitment beyond the willingness to write stories as they are able.
There are 23 Army and Air Force fallen servicemen on the National Archives Honor List for Green County, Wisconsin. There are 6 fallen servicemen who served in the US Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard from Green County. These lists were compiled by the US War Department and completed in 1946. The Green County Veterans Service Center has another 21 fallen service members on their list, bringing the current total to 50 for Green County.
However, with such a massive undertaking to create the lists, mistakes happened. In addition, the idea of determining where someone was “from” could vary from person to person. Were they “from” the place they were born, where they grew up, or where they were living when they were drafted or enlisted? Sometimes where they were “from” was the place where their next of kin was living at the time of notification of their relative’s demise.
Case in point, 2nd Lieutenant Richard T. Booth, who was from Monroe, Green County, Wisconsin was mistakenly placed on the Monroe County, Wisconsin list.
For the next 50 weeks, the Monroe Times will run a weekly story on the known WWII Fallen service members from Green County. If you have a Green County family member you would like to remember or have photos or information to contribute to their story, please contact this writer at HansonHeritage@gmail.com.
August 15, 2022 will be the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Stories Behind the Stars projects aims to have all 421,000+ stories written by September 2025 for the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII.
If you would like to volunteer to honor and remember WWII fallen servicemen and women from anywhere in the United States, visit https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/ for more information.
