60 questions to ask a veteran about their service, and how to record the interview with care

Before service (questions 1 to 10)

1. Where did you grow up, and what was your family like?
2. What were you doing right before you joined?
3. Did anyone in your family serve before you? What did they tell you about it?
4. Why did you join, or how were you drafted?
5. Which branch did you join, and why that one?
6. How did your family react when you told them?
7. What did you think military life would be like?
8. What was happening in the world at the time, and how much did you know about it?
9. Who did you say goodbye to before you left?
10. What did you pack, or wish you had packed?

Joining up and training (questions 11 to 20)

11. What do you remember about your first day?
12. Where did you do basic training, and what was it like?
13. Describe your drill instructor or the person in charge of you.
14. What was the hardest part of training, and what was easier than you expected?
15. Who did you become friends with first?
16. What job or specialty were you trained for, and how was it chosen?
17. What was the food like?
18. Was there a moment in training when you thought about quitting? What kept you going?
19. What did you learn about yourself in those first months?
20. Where were you sent after training, and how did you find out?

Service and a normal day (questions 21 to 30)

21. Where did you serve, and when?
22. Walk me through a normal day, from waking up to going to sleep.
23. What was your job, in plain words?
24. What did you carry with you, every day?
25. How did you stay in touch with home? Do you still have any of the letters?
26. What did you do in your free time?
27. What was the place itself like: the weather, the smells, the sounds?
28. Is there a day from your service you remember more clearly than any other? Tell me about it, as much as you want to.
29. What was the funniest thing that happened?
30. Were you given any medals, ranks or honors? What were they for?

The people they served with (questions 31 to 40)

31. Who were the people closest to you while you served?
32. Tell me about one of them: where they were from, what they were like.
33. Who was the best leader you served under, and what made them good?
34. What nicknames did people have, and how did they get them?
35. How did you look out for each other?
36. What did you argue about?
37. Did you meet local people where you served? What do you remember about them?
38. Is there someone you served with you would like people to remember?
39. Are you still in touch with anyone? How?
40. What did serving with those people teach you?

Coming home (questions 41 to 50)

41. When and how did your service end?
42. What do you remember about the trip home?
43. Who was there to meet you, and what was the first thing you did?
44. How did people at home treat you when you got back?
45. What was hard about going back to everyday life?
46. What was the first job you had after you left the service?
47. How did your service shape the work you did afterward?
48. Did you use any benefits, such as education or a home loan? How did that change things?
49. When did you first start talking about your service, and with whom?
50. What do you wish people at home had understood?

Looking back (questions 51 to 60)

51. How did serving change you?
52. What are you proudest of from your time in the service?
53. What do you think about when you hear the word "veteran"?
54. How do you spend Veterans Day or Memorial Day?
55. What do movies and books get wrong about service like yours? What do they get right?
56. What would you tell a young person thinking about joining?
57. What objects from your service have you kept, and why those?
58. Is there anything you have never told your family that you would like them to know?
59. What do you want your grandchildren to understand about this part of your life?
60. Is there anything I did not ask that you would like to talk about?

Before you start: asking with care

• Say why you are asking. For the family, for a school project, for a book, or for a public archive. It changes what they will want to share.
• Send the themes ahead. A day or two to think brings back names, places and dates.
• Let them lead on the hard parts. Do not ask whether they killed anyone, and do not press for details of combat, injuries or loss. Ask open questions and accept a short answer.
• Watch for tiredness or distress. Offer a break, or to stop and come back another day, and mean it.
• Agree on who will see it. Before you share or publish anything, let them hear or read it and take out what they want kept private.

Follow-ups that turn short answers into stories:

• "Can you tell me about one particular day?"
• "Where were you? Who else was there?"
• "What did they say, as close as you remember?"
• "What happened next?"

How to record it, and where to keep it

Record it. Ask before you press record. Put your phone on something soft, a hand's width or two from them, in a quiet room with the television off. Start by saying the date, your name, their full name, branch and years of service. Back up the file the same day. The iPhone recording guide covers in-person, phone and video calls, and the recording setup guide covers rooms and backups.

Bring the photos and papers. Service photos, letters, discharge papers and medals are good starting points. "Tell me about this" reaches memories that questions miss. Photograph each item and say on the recording what it is.

Preserve it. Keep two copies in different places. In the US, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project has been collecting, preserving and making accessible the personal narratives of U.S. military veterans since 2000, and publishes guidelines for creating a veteran's collection. If you may donate the interview, read its current guidelines and forms before you record.

Get it on paper. The transcription options guide compares software and human transcription, and the transcript to chapter guide shows how spoken stories become readable prose.

Interviewing family about the rest of their life too? See the life story interview questions and 75 questions to ask your grandparents.