In ninth grade, Luke Basso began documenting the stories of veterans. He created a You Tube channel to preserve the experiences of soldiers who served from World War II to current conflicts. Basso skipped his high school graduation this year to go to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley he has always had an interest in history.
I’ve always liked history especially military and political history. It wasn’t until 2021 in 9th grade when I started my You Tube page Filmperia getting veterans to preserve their stories. I originally wanted to get the last living Korean and WWII veterans, but there’s barely any of them left. There’s barely any of them left. So I’ve had veterans from all conflicts. And not just veterans. I’ve had Holocaust survivors or victims of Communism on my channel.
As a student you could have just gone and talked to them and learned about them yourself. But you’ve actually done videos and put it on You Tube so that other people can see or hear their stories. How did this grow? How did this become a continuing project?
I never plan on stopping this. I never plan on stopping this at all. It was just more of an in the moment thing. I wanted to preserve these veteran’s stories and it goes back when it was first a thought we have to go back to late 2020. I met with Doug Brown. He’s a WWII veteran. I wanted to meet him. So there was a parade going on for him for his birthday. I think his 100th birthday. I wanted to meet him. But there was so much happening that day so the family said hey come back tomorrow you can meet him. So I came back the next day. There were two cameras set up and the family recorded my conversation with him. And I’m thinking okay I can do the same thing. I like making videos. I like film. I like history. I like the military. I like current events. I love all this kind of stuff. So one thing led to another. I got film equipment in 2021 and I started my You Tube channel. And ever since then I’ve had people from all over the world on Zoom or in person. Not just American veterans. I’ve had other veterans on my channel too or people with historical significance. Most of them say no. I get why these people don’t want to talk about this stuff. I get it. War is a terrible thing. Why would you want to recall those terrible memories? But they realize the significance of sharing these stories for the world to see, especially with a lot of the older veterans they understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
Why do you believe it’s important to record and preserve their stories?
There’s barely any WWII and Korean veterans left and people need to know what it’s like from their point of view, not from like a movie or a textbook or just history class. These are firsthand accounts and you can know what actually happened and the truth of what actually happened. It’s very important for these people to have their stories shared so people know what they went through. A lot of people do not know what these people went through.
Basso interviewed Antonio “Tony” Gagliardi who served in the Pacific Theater, including Iwo Jima, during WWII:
“I looked up and there they were putting the flag up. Ultimately the executive officer, the guy in command of the Marines, said they ought to put up a bigger flag. And that one, when that was put up they took pictures and that appeared in a magazine and that’s the one that you see as the symbol of WWII.”
John Neggia, a WWII Army veteran who served in Europe, told Basso about his experiences:
“When the medics came with the stretcher, the three of us we went to tend to the other ones that were wounded. They were crying and hollering and we helped the others. And then I happened to look to see who’s next and I said oh my gosh. It was a soldier there. He was decapitated. So I didn’t look any more. I went to another. But we got hit so bad and I cannot forget this. Every night, 70-some years, I still think of it. We lost a lot of good soldiers. But like I say we didn’t know what we were doing. We were only kids. I was only 19 then and it was hard. We went through a lot.”
You are capturing a range of memories and some of them are quite graphic. Were you surprised? Did you get emotional too sometimes with what these veterans were telling you about their experiences?
Sometimes I get surprised at how open they’ll be. Sometimes a lot of these veterans have never spoken about their experiences ever in their lives and then I come along. They’ve met me very recently. They barely know me and they’re okay sharing their story to some high schooler rather than their family members or their friends.
Luke Basso, you decided not to attend your high school graduation because you decided to go to the commemoration in Normandy this year. What was that like?
That was a once in a lifetime experience at the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I know there will never be another D-Day anniversary like this ever again. There’s barely any WWII veterans left. They’re almost 100 years old. And I’m very grateful I went to this and there’s people from all over the world I met. There’s flags from all the Allied nations everywhere. Everything there represented D-Day and the French people in Normandy they’re so grateful for the Americans and the Allies who liberated them from four years of Nazi oppression.
Did you get a chance to record or interview any of the veterans while you were there?
No it was pretty hard to do that when there was so much happening all at once. But I got to meet a lot of WWII veterans and other veterans from other conflicts too so I got their contact information. Hopefully I can Zoom call them in the future or at least stay in touch with these people because I made a lot of good friends when I was there.
How do you think the interviews that you’ve done have affected you?
Oh, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. And I mean a lot. I don’t want to repeat myself but I do. Not just from their point of view but I get to learn background knowledge of historical conflicts, even lesser known ones, or even not just from their point of view the overall context and I get to her what it was really like. When you read these textbooks or watch a movie or watch a documentary, they make it so cut and dry. It’s not cut and dry and there’s a lot of what goes on behind the scenes that people do not know about at all. So hearing from these veterans, from boots on the ground soldiers to commanders, none of it’s cut and dry. It is not cut and dry. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that no one talks about. So hearing this I learned a lot about all of these conflicts.
Luke Basso has recorded about 100 interviews and so far has uploaded nearly 70 online.
Basso began his project while living in Chazy, New York and moved to North Carolina last year.
