Oral & Video History Section
2 Historians
Introduction
The Oral & Video History Section of the Marine Corps History Division serves to document Marine Corps historical events. The Marine Corps Oral History Program began during the Vietnam War and focused on interviewing Marines involved in current operations. Video recordings of the Marine Corps stretch back to the earliest days of motion pictures in the era of World War I.
Thousands of interviews were conducted in Vietnam and at Marine Corps bases to capture Marines’ experiences and perspectives while still fresh in their minds. The top priority of the Marine Corps History Division’s Oral History Program remains current Marine Corps operations. As a result, the program has produced a rich collection of field interviews spanning half a century. Another key aspect of the Marine Corps History Division’s Oral History Program is an ever expanding collection of career-length transcribed interviews of ranking Marine Corps leaders, and other distinguished Marines. The Marine Corps Oral History Collection also includes a large number of veterans’ interviews, recorded presentations, briefings, debriefings, speeches, and similar "spoken history." Currently, the oral history collection consists of approximately 20,000 items covering virtually all aspects of 20th and 21st century Marine Corps history.
There are roughly an equal number of video recordings in the holdings of the Marine Corps Oral & Video History Section. Photographic film captured Marines in the World War I trenches, amphibious landings of island-hopping Marines in World War II, Marines holding the hill tops in Korea, and in the jungles of Vietnam. The relative ease of magnetic tape in various cassette formats expanded the coverage of Marine missions in hot spots such as Beirut, humanitarian missions around the globe, and of course, the full scale conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Documentation of combat, support units, weapons research and development, training exercises, and educational presentations broadly preserves the recent history of the Corps.
Volunteer-submitted interviews are always welcome. Please view the Oral History Primer for specific instructions and requirements.