War stories are endlessly fascinating to Tom Beaty.
In those tales, war’s random tragedies and extraordinary acts are laid out in infinite variety, explains the 41-year-old Norcross [GA] entrepreneur. And they are disappearing fast as World War II’s veterans, most in their 80s or 90s, pass away.
“Every time I see an obituary for a World War II veteran who has died, it just hits me,” said Beaty. “All those stories gone.”
In 2001, Beaty decided to capture some of those tales on videotape. That grew into a collection of 200 interviews that he assembled into an online archive, Witness to War (www.witnesstowar.org), that he launched in 2006.
His plan is eventually to interview 1,000 veterans and civilians who were caught in the conflict and donate the collection of oral histories, photos and other materials to the Library of Congress.
But after putting eight years and perhaps $120,000 of his own money into the project, Beaty has realized it’s become too big and expensive for him to do on his own while running his business. To speed up the process before too many veterans get much older, he’s trying to raise $650,000 to hire interviewers and editors for his nonprofit organization.
“I feel like I can take it further, but I’m at the limits of my time.
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