Biographies of Veterans & Spouses
Their Lives & Legacies
Welcome
As part of our effort to commemorate the lives and legacies of veterans memorialized at the Florida National Cemetery, St. Augustine National Cemetery, Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, and Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, undergraduates and graduate students at the University of Central Florida and VLP Institute K-12 educators wrote brief biographies of these men and women. Using primary sources—original documents—including government records, census data, and newspaper accounts, students chronicled these men and women’s military service, their early years before they entered the armed forces, and their post war lives. All of this was done based on information available to the public; for example, the 1940 census is available, the 1950 census is not. In addition to documenting individual lives, students used secondary sources—historical studies—to place these men and women’s lives in the context of larger issues in US history. A census record documents a World War II veteran’s poverty in the Great Depression, an African American veteran’s limited education in an era when they had few opportunities to attend school. We hope you read these biographies and remember these men and women’s lives and legacies; how they overcame these challenges and served our nation. In some instances, the veterans’ biographies include their spouses; men and women who shared their lives with a veteran can also be buried or memorialized in a national cemetery. When a spouse joined their veteran, and students found enough information on this loved one’s life, we included the spouses’ name as part of a shared biography. Often in these biographies we refer to veterans’ other family members who are also honored; service to the nation is a shared experience among family members. Each life, their own story; each story part of the larger tapestry of American history.
Search Instructions
The Display Results As option allows you to display the search results spatially on a map, or visually on data cards. Both the map and data card visualizations are color coded by branch of service: Army (black), Navy (blue), Air Force (silver), Marines (red), and Coast Guard (light blue). Spouses of veterans are shown as brown unless they are a veteran themselves. You may access the biographies by clicking on a map pin or data card.
If you wish to limit the results of your search to specific individuals or groups please select from the following criteria. If you wish to view all veterans in the database, leave the criteria defaulted to All.
