As a busy senior at Hamilton High School, Zhenrui Gu strives to take part in extracurricular opportunities that help connect her with people whose experiences are different from her own.
This goal inspired Gu to participate in the school’s Imprints of Honor club.
Students who take part in Imprints of Honor interview veterans and use the answers to help write their stories, which are then published in the nonprofit’s annual book, Since You Asked. The process preserves each veteran’s first-person oral history with the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.
“I decided to participate in Imprints of Honor because I thought there was something really powerful about learning history directly from the people who experienced it,” Gu says.
As Jennifer Pollnow, AP United States History teacher and co-advisor of Imprints of Honor at Hamilton High School, shares, the school began participating in Imprints of Honor during the 2023-2024 school year.
“Each year we have roughly 15 to 20 students participating. Last year we had 19 stories published by our students,” she says.
With Pollnow’s help, Gu was recently introduced to Kelly Cooper, a Chandler resident who served in the United States Marine Corps from 1993 to 1997.
The two met at an Imprints of Honor office, and in an interview that lasted approximately 90 minutes, Gu asked Cooper to share his story, using questions from the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress and Imprints of Honor as a guide.
Gu says she thoroughly enjoyed learning about Cooper’s time serving as an infantry Marine, including how he spent part of his service overseas in Okinawa, South Korea, Cuba, Central America, and South America.
“My favorite part was honestly the storytelling. I went into the interview expecting that I would be asking most of the questions, but there were moments when I could just sit back and listen,” Gu says. “One thing I really enjoyed was hearing how Mr. Cooper remembered events from his own perspective. When you learn history in school, you usually learn about major events from a broad perspective. You might learn what happened, when it happened, and why it was historically significant. But during the interview, I got to hear about the human side of those experiences.”
Cooper, who heard about Imprints of Honor from a friend who was on the board, says the interview with Gu was “an amazing experience.”
“What makes the program unique is that it isn’t simply a veteran sitting down and telling war stories. There’s a student on the other side of the conversation who is genuinely interested, asking thoughtful questions, and trying to understand an experience from another generation,” he says. “I think veterans sometimes look at their experiences and think, ‘There’s nothing particularly special about my story.’ But every veteran experienced a piece of history from a perspective that very few other people have. If we don’t tell those stories, they eventually disappear.”
After finishing the interview, Gu took the notes that she collected and used them to write an approximately 2,500-word story about Cooper and his experiences.
As Pollnow notes, Gu, who has now interviewed a few veterans for Imprints of Honor, is exceptionally articulate with a gift for communication.
“After reading Zhenrui’s stories, you know they are truly heartfelt. She has a rare ability to capture not just the facts of a veteran’s service, but the emotion and humanity behind it,” she says.
When Cooper read Gu’s drafts of the story, he found himself becoming very emotional.
“She captured a piece of my life story from a perspective I hadn’t expected. Seeing my experiences reflected back to me through her eyes was incredibly meaningful,” he says. “When you’re serving, you certainly aren’t thinking that someday a student is going to interview you, and your story is going to end up in a book. At the time, you’re simply doing your job alongside the Marines around you.”
Knowing that his story will be published for other people to read is surreal, humbling, and very meaningful, Cooper says.
“My kids will be able to read it, and someday their kids may be able to read it, too. Students and people I may never meet will have the opportunity to understand a small piece of what military service was like during that period,” he says.
For veterans who are considering becoming part of Imprints of Honor, Cooper definitely recommends it.
“One of the things I want other veterans to understand is that you don’t have to have been a general, receive a medal for valor, or experience something extraordinary in combat for your story to matter,” he says. “If you served, you’re part of an extraordinarily small segment of the population, and you have a story worth preserving.”
Likewise, Gu suggests that other students consider joining an Imprints of Honor club.
“I think it gives young people an opportunity to do something that we don’t always get to do in school: slow down and really listen to someone from another generation,” she says. “For me, Imprints of Honor is a reminder that preserving history doesn’t always require something huge or complicated. Sometimes it starts with one student sitting down with one veteran and saying, ‘Tell me about your life.’ And then actually taking the time to listen.”