ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — While most 19-year-olds are enrolling in college, working their first full-time job or considering what’s next in life— keeping their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts buzzing 24/7 — Rishi Sharma is on a far different quest. The 19-year-old Californian has been interviewing at least one World War II combat veteran a day for more than a year, recording their stories and learning all he can from that quickly disappearing “Greatest Generation.”
To date, he’s interviewed more than 260 such veterans, including several from New Mexico, reported the Albuquerque Journal.
“My best friends are World War II veterans,” said Sharma, the son of Indian immigrants who was raised in Agoura Hills, California.
Armed with a video camera, a lengthy list of questions and a razor-sharp focus on the job at hand, Sharma has already traveled thousands of miles in his Honda Civic to interview any combat veteran with the mental acuity and time — typically four to six hours — to spare.
Four days into his New Mexico swing, Sharma was in the Northeast Heights home of Jim W. Wilson who, at age 95, is likely the last remaining Army paratrooper who helped liberate 2,147 civilian and military prisoners being held by their Japanese captors at the Los Baños internment camp in the Philippines. The Los Baños raid, which occurred 72 years ago, is among the most successful POW rescues in modern military history.
Over the course of several hours, Sharma and Wilson discussed the veteran’s childhood on a sharecropping farm in Elgin, Texas, the challenges of growing up during the Depression, his military service, the famous raid and his life after the war. Taking brief breaks as needed, Sharma patiently and painstakingly queried Wilson, hoping to get as complete a portrait of the veteran as he could.
At the end, Sharma offered Wilson a copy of the video to do with as he chooses.
“Some veterans will share the video with their families and friends, and some won’t do anything with it. It’s entirely up to them,” Sharma said. That’s his standard operating procedure.
“I’m not trying to make a cute movie of grandpa for the family. That would be a waste of time,” Sharma said. “What I’m trying to do is give these World War II combat veterans a chance to get some things off their chests before they pass away.”
Sharma said that although he thinks it’s important to preserve the veterans’ stories, there’s no documentary or book in the works. Although he has sent the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project some of the videos, he doesn’t do it routinely. With a veteran’s permission, he posts some of the videos on his Facebook page.
