Week 9: The First Interview

Baby's First Steps

This week on the Veteran's History Project I took a very big step and completed my first interview. I was quite nervous going into it as I didn't know what to expect and I had no prior experiences to interviewing, but I'm quite pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I prepared my interview all week, researching as much as I could to prepare my questions for my interviewee, but there was truly nothing that could give me the advantage I wanted. I knew that going into it, so I said a silent prayer and remained confident until the end. Looking back, I truly had nothing to worry about. Once I found my groove, I thrived. A good interview is one that gets the needed information out of the subject. A great one is one that gets the anted information out of the subject; I did exactly that. I was able to ask my subject about the time she experienced a typhoon of the coast of Australia and the experiences she had on a flagship outside of Yugoslavia in the 1980s. My personal favorite, however, was the experience she had during her residency in Portsmouth where her and her friends broke into an abandoned psychiatric ward at her base. It was like memories like those that reminded me of why we do what we do. Each story is not "too much" or "too boring" because each story represents the finite time of a soul's experience on earth. There is thrill in having life abundantly whilst breaking into a haunted psychiatric ward with your girlfriends, but it does not overshadow or become any less important than the moment you realize your flagship is being tailed by submarines. I'm not sure why I was so nervous. It's almost as if I got to listen to someone's life story for fun. Oh, wait, I did! 

I have another interview planned for Monday, October 31st. I'm hyped up and ready to roll!