USA Warrior Stories, Created by Longtime Friends, Gives Veterans a Platform To Connect and Share

In 2017, Matt Hindra and Nick Kraus paid a visit to Martin Sylvester at his home in Springs. They clipped a small black microphone to Sylvester’s blue button-down shirt, aimed the smartphone camera lens at the World War II veteran, tapped the red circle, and asked him questions about his time in the war.

Over the course of several hours, Sylvester spoke about registering for the draft on April 4, 1943, the day he turned 18; landing on Utah Beach, in Normandy, a little over a year later, on June 7, 1944; fighting with his U.S. Army regiment in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, and the Battle of the Bulge; being captured and escaping, multiple times, before finally being liberated by a U.S. Army unit. When he arrived at a hospital in Paris shortly after that ordeal, he weighed only 80 pounds, had lice and fleas, and an infection in his leg that, left untreated for two more weeks, would likely have led to amputation.

Before turning the camera off that day, Hindra and Kraus asked Sylvester one final question: Was there anything else he wanted to talk about, that they hadn’t already covered?

“Did I tell you about when they put me in front of a firing squad?” he said.

Hindra and Kraus, lifelong friends and graduates of East Hampton High School, understand the power and importance of stories. They also know that the way powerful stories are told and shared means everything.

That’s why, in 2017, they created USA Warrior Stories, a not-for-profit organization designed to record, archive and share videos of veteran stories online to help veterans connect with one another and to help people better understand the sacrifices they make for our freedom.

“Martin is the reason why we keep recording these stories,” Hindra said, in an interview last week.

He and Kraus have been friends since they were teenagers. Ten years ago, they worked together on a documentary film called “Welcome to Soldier Ride,” that chronicled the cross-country bike trek taken by another East Hampton resident, Chris Carney, to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project.

In the process of making the documentary, Hindra and Kraus did on-camera interviews with many veterans, listening to incredible stories and powerful reflections of their time in the service, what it taught them, what it did to them, the ways they had to readjust to normal life, heal, and move on. They couldn’t fit it all in the documentary, but found they couldn’t bear to simply leave those stories on the cutting-room floor.

So, they didn’t.

“We basically never turned the camera off after that,” Hindra said.

They decided to take those stories, and film more of them, creating a series of short films that would become USA Warrior Stories. To date, they’ve recorded roughly 400 stories, about 300 of which are finished videos, available for viewing online on their YouTube channel.

Kraus and Hindra will have their first big public-facing event this Saturday at the Southampton Arts Center on Jobs Lane in Southampton Village, screening three USA Warrior Stories films, centered on local veterans, in honor of Veterans Day.

They will show their short film on Sylvester, as well as two other films from the archive, focused on Vietnam veteran Ed German, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1967 to 1970, and U.S. Navy veteran Angelique Williams, who served from 1997 to 2014.

The event, which runs from 3 to 5 p.m., will include a question-and-answer session with German, Williams and Martin Sylvester’s son, Paul Sylvester, moderated by Kraus and Hindra.

Kraus spoke earlier this week about the genesis of USA Warrior Stories, and the responsibility he and Hindra felt to continue sharing the stories they had collected during the making of the documentary, and gathering more.

“We realized we had these stories and had access to these soldiers and Marines, and had the ability to not only help them shape and tell their stories, but to give an audience, for both sides, the teller and the listener, so they can know they’re not alone,” he said.

Whether it’s a World War II veteran telling stories in front of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, or a young veteran fresh out of the military, Kraus said the stories have a common thread.

“There are rewarding aspects to every single one of them,” he said.

The Library of Congress has long recorded and collected veteran’s stories, in a vast archive. But those stories are only accessible if people work hard to go looking for them. For Kraus and Hindra, a big part of the USA Warrior Stories mission is to share the stories as widely as possible, harnessing the power of the internet and social media.

“Our idea was to really promote these stories so people could see individuals talk about their experiences in war and after war,” Hindra said. “Sometimes, their experiences has nothing to do with combat, but about problems reintegrating into nonmilitary life. All these issues that we sort of take for granted, that the people who are protecting us around the world, they have a lot of issues when they get out of the military.”

Hindra credited Southampton Arts Center Executive Director Christina Strassfield for being a strong supporter of USA Warrior Stories and their mission. Many local veterans, including some who are part of USA Warrior Stories, visited the SAC last summer when it had a powerful exhibit on the American flag, featuring John Monsky’s collection of historical flags. At that time, they began talking about having a screening of the USA Warrior Stories short films at the SAC.

Hindra explained why they chose to feature Sylvester, Williams and German for Saturday’s event.

“What Nick and I wanted to do was to honor three very different generations of veterans,” he said. “Angelique represents the modern soldier in a lot of ways. She traveled the world and has done amazing things in the Navy, and then got out to a world where there aren’t a lot of veterans her age, so she had a lot of issues coming back into society.”

Williams has a therapy dog, Buddy, from the nonprofit, Paws of War. Her healing journey also included engaging in art, and some of her work will be on display on Saturday.

German is a well-known figure in the community, thanks to his popularity as a radio host at WLIW-FM, where he has his own jazz show.

He was very young when he went to Vietnam, and saw “horrific things,” while he was there, Hindra said. He wrote a memoir about his service, but it was a long time coming.

“He was wounded and came home and never talked about it for 40 years,” Hindra said.

There’s something else that Hindra and Kraus have come to understand over the years they’ve spent listening to military veterans — that the willingness to invite someone else in and allow them to have a hand in shaping how their stories are told for a wide audience, is its own kind of sub-story, a sort of parallel process every veteran has to go through, on his or her own.

That was true for both Williams and German.

After the release of his memoir, Hindra and Kraus asked German if he’d collaborate with them. He said no.

“He said, ‘I tell my story all the time — nobody’s interested,’” Hindra shared. “We never pressure anybody, but we kept running into him, and eventually he said okay.”

His story became one of the most popular on the USA Warrior Stories YouTube page, with thousands of comments.

For German, it was a matter of patience and timing.

Hindra shared that, with Williams, she decided she wasn’t ready to share her story after watching back the initial recording she’d done with Hindra and Kraus.

Eventually, she felt ready. In her case, it was a matter of inviting in another storytelling collaborator, a woman, which created space for Williams to share aspects of her story in a way that felt easier.

“We never force someone to release their story,” Hindra said. “If someone tells us their story and they watch it back and, for one reason or another, they don’t want to share it, that’s fine. It takes time to digest these things, to put into words what you’ve been through. I give Angelique props; she’s been on an incredible journey.”

Hindra and Kraus said they are particularly interested in sharing the stories of more female veterans, because they are so often underrepresented.

With hundreds of stories already produced, and more in the pipeline, Kraus and Hindra are not interested in stopping anytime soon. They even work with people from across the country, who have approached them. If they can’t conduct the video interviews in person, they mail kits to family members, with a microphone and stand for their smartphone, and simple instructions on how to conduct the interviews.

“One thing we say every day is that the people we interview were witness to a moment in time and in history that is very hard to relate to through a history book,” Hindra said. “Someone like Ed German or Martin Sylvester, being so young and being thrown into war and then coming home and not talking about it for the majority of their lives, it’s an interesting thing to be able to discuss it with people in the way we do.”

For more information, visit usawarriorstories.org.