On July 4th, 2020 the largest media organization in Utah did a story about a new nonprofit initiative with the ambitious goal to write the stories of all 400,000+ US WWII fallen.
Within weeks hundreds of people expressed an interest in joining this project. Many of them helped to write the stories of all of the 2,100 Utah WWII fallen, the first time something like this has ever been attempted.
Since that time there have been more than 100 news stories about this project which have attracted the interest of more than 3,000 people and close to 1,000 have offered to help write stories.
Now is the time for these Stories Behind the Stars volunteers to make the news.
It took us about 12 months to complete the first 2,000 stories. Now we are doing 2,000 stories every 5 weeks. Despite this growth, we need to be adding about 10,000 stories a month to complete the project by the goal date of September 2, 2025, the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Memorial Day is the one day of the year where the nation focuses on honoring our military fallen. Every news editor in the nation is looking for a story for his organization to run for Memorial Day. Every reporter wants to be the one with that Memorial Day front page story or Memorial Day TV news feature.
You need to be this story.
What you have done, in writing the stories of the WWII fallen, is incredibly newsworthy.
I need you on the front page of your local newspaper or the featured profile on the local evening TV news.
Your moment in the media lime light can bring us hundreds of interested volunteers who can write thousands of stories of the fallen, bringing us ever closer to completing this project.
This video explains how to go about getting your Stories Behind the Star volunteer efforts in the news.
The short version to what is in the video is:
Identify local reporters who have created Memorial Day / Veterans Day / Military stories in the past.
Reach out to them to tell them what you have been doing with Stories Behind the Stars.
Make the story of high local interest.
It is okay to reach out to multiple news organizations.
After you have engaged with a reporter, you can provide this basic background information about this project:
The Stories Behind the Stars mission is to find volunteers to write the stories of all 421,000 US WWII fallen by the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on September 2, 2025.
All stories are saved to a common database and can be read for free via smartphone app at any gravesite or memorial anywhere in the world.
So far this nonprofit initiative has attracted nearly 1,000 volunteers from all 50 states and more than a dozen other countries who have completed more than 27,000 stories.
Stories Behind the Stars volunteers have already completed the stories of all the 2,341 Pearl Harbor fallen, all of the 2,502 US D-Day fallen, and are currently working on completing the stories of all the 8,774 WWII fallen buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
We have had volunteers step forward to act as state directors in 39 states. When completed we will have the most accurate and complete list of World War II fallen ever compiled.
Stories Behind the Stars provides free training and access to research sites to volunteers. It only takes 2-3 hours to research and write a story of a World War II fallen.
Stories Behind the Stars Founder and Director Don Milne can be reached at don@storiesbehindthestars.org.
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