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Aaron Elson

Oral Historian, Author, Public Speaker

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Aaron Elson

Oral Historian, Author, Public Speaker

Main Menu
 * About
 * Advertise
 * Books
 * Cart
 * Checkout
 * Home
 * My account
 * Podcast
 * Sample Page
 * shop
 * Shop
 * Stories
 * Vern Schmidt (interview)

My father, Maurice Elson, was a veteran of World War 2. He had quadruple bypass
surgery in 1978, and gained an extra two years of active life. When he was
hospitalized after having a heart attack in 1980, I bought a little tape
recorder — a Sony Recording Walkman — hoping to  get him talking about the war.
I forgot to bring the recorder when I went to visit, and figured I’d bring it
next time.

There would be no next time.

Seven years later, I found a newsletter addressed to my dad from the 712th Tank
Battalion Association. I wrote and asked if they could put a note in the next
issue saying if anyone remembered Lieutenant Elson, could they get in touch with
me? A week later, a letter arrived from Sam MacFarland, who wrote that he didn’t
know my father but they were in the same company (Company A). He said the
battalion was having a reunion in a couple of weeks. If I came to the reunion,
he’d take me around and see what we could find.

At that reunion, I met three veterans who remembered my dad; two of them in
passing but the third was Jule Braatz, the sergeant whose platoon my dad was
supposed to lead as a replacement for the first officer in the battalion to be
killed. I sat down with Braatz and recorded an all too brief 45 minute
interview. At the same time, I was deeply moved by the stories the veterans
shared among themselves — in the hospitality room, the parking lot, the hotel
lobby — yet rarely shared with their own family, that I thought these stories
need to be preserved.

I missed the next reunion because of work obligations, but went to the 1989
reunion, tape recorder in hand, and never missed another reunion. The rest is
history. Oral history.

I never did get to interview Sam MacFarland, whose daughter was born while he
was in combat so he named her Lucky. Sam was one of 14 sergeants in the 712th
who received a battlefield commission. Braatz was another. In the newsletter
that arrived before the 1989 reunion, Ray Griffin, the battalion association
president, wrote that he got a letter from Sam in which he said his cancer came
out of remission, and that time was succeeding where Adolph Hitler failed. He
passed away a few weeks later.

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