Veterans eager to be interviewed

BANGOR – The Cole Land Transportation Museum will open for the season on Sunday, May 1, and the veterans are ready.

Some 80 servicemen and women from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the Persian Gulf will be back on days when classes of schoolchildren in grades six to 12 come to the museum to interview them.

Many of the veterans bring along their medals and pictures and other artifacts from their time in the service.

Francis Zelz of Bangor, a retired architect who served aboard both a Navy minesweeper and a destroyer during World War II, shows the youngsters a couple of hand grenades, a 20 mm shell and pictures from the war.

“That would generate some questions,” he recalled. “They like most to hear about the guns.” But that’s not all the pupils found interesting.

“I used to write poetry; that really grabbed them,” he said.

The classes come from Caravel Middle School in Carmel, Mount Jefferson in Lee and Washington Academy in East Machias. Gardiner has sent youngsters eight years in a row, Caribou for four, Lawrence Junior High in Fairfield for nine years.

A total of 10,000 pupils have conducted interviews with veterans through the museum program.

Schools are signing up to bring their classes in to interview the vets this spring and next fall. Several veterans in recent years have said they don’t know why more local schools don’t sign up for the chance to have their pupils hear about history firsthand.

Museum founder Galen Cole said he’d like to see the current participation of 1,500 or so pupils a year in the interview program grow to 3,000 or more.

The vets are available – the city councilors and bankers and history teachers and deputy sheriffs who give their time to bring history alive.

In addition to the museum, the youth also visit the state memorials for World War II, Vietnam Veterans and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

“I’ve enjoyed the interviews,” said Zelz, who also volunteers at the museum. “It’s one of the best programs I’ve been tied up with.”

The Cole Land Transportation Museum is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, May 1-Nov. 11, at 405 Perry Road, Bangor. School officials interested in signing up classes to interview veterans are encouraged to call the museum at 990-3600. Admission is $6 adults, $4 adults over 62, free under age 19.