It began as a CT man’s family history project. Now ‘Faces of Freedom’ shares memories of dozens of veterans
What began as a family history project for Walter Schuppe of Avon has turned into a mission: to capture the recollections of veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces.
“Everybody has a story. It may not be about taking the hill or blowing up mortars in the hills of Vietnam or sitting on the cliff in Bosnia waiting for positive identification on a really bad guy. If you were there, there is always something,” said Schuppe.
Schuppe has created a website, facesoffreedom.us, to collect those stories. So far, he has uploaded the stories and photos of 88 veterans. When not working as a managing director at Pacific Western Bank in Farmington, he is looking for more veterans who want to share their stories.
He visits them, interviews and photographs them, then adds their stories to his collection online. They range from the last survivor of the legendary Easy Company from World War II to an infantryman in Afghanistan who is still in his 20s.
At first, Schuppe didn’t plan to create a website. He just wanted his second cousin, Henry Schuppe, to tell him some stories to record in the family genealogy.
“I interviewed him bit by bit over multiple years. He was in World War II and had never talked about it,” Schuppe said.
Then Schuppe turned 60. That milestone birthday had an emotional effect on him.
“A lot of pages had come off my calendar. I thought, I’ve had a good life. I’ve never had to make the sacrifices these guys had to make. I didn’t pull my weight in this regard. I didn’t serve in the military,” he said. “What can I ever do now?”
So he decided to collect and tell veterans’ stories. After writing them up, he gave each veteran a copy, and kept a copy for himself. But that wasn’t enough.
“At one point, all these stories and photographs were on my computer. I thought, if I die nobody will know where to find them,” Schuppe said. “So I put up the website so they’re all there.”
Of course, Army Cpl. Henry Schuppe is included in the mix. His experiences are an example of the people, as his cousin mentioned, who may not have participated in an earth-shaking battle, but had interesting observations nonetheless:
“One day Henry was working in the supply depot and a soldier in fatigues came in with a list of supplies he needed. … Henry saw two big letters on the back of his uniform: PW. Henry said to him, ‘Hey, are you a German prisoner of war?’ The man replied ‘yes.’ Henry said to him, ‘but you speak such perfect English.’ The man replied, ‘I should. I was born in Yorkville (a section of Manhattan that was primarily German at that time). I went on vacation with my parents back to Germany and while we were there Hitler declared war and I couldn’t leave’.”
Many other interview subjects recount compelling stories of life during wartime.
Lt. Morton N. Katz, a Hartford native in the 82nd Airborne Division in Germany in 1945: “Scouts came back with a report of a camp that was full of bodies and a warehouse full of clogs. It was the Wöbbelin concentration camp. … Major General James Gavin … was so appalled at what he saw he made the local townspeople walk through the camp and later carry the bodies from the camp to a cemetery, dig graves and bury the bodies.”
Cpl. Thomas Greenway, an Army medic in Korea: “The battle on Heartbreak Ridge began on September 13, 1951 and lasted for 30 days. The American and UN forces battled the North Korean and Chinese forces on a ridge of hills. The steep rocky terrain and the fierce fighting and heavy artillery bombardments resulted in a huge loss of life and equipment for both sides.”
Air Force Lt. Col. David B. Grant, whose plane was shot down while serving in Vietnam: “The North Vietnamese … conducted a mock trial while David was kept on his knees with a bayonet at his head. He was convicted of being a war criminal and handed over to the North Vietnamese regular army who put a bag over his head and put him in a truck for the trip to the Hanoi Hilton.”
Navy SEAL Don D. Mann, a Hartford native stationed in Latin America starting in 1989: “The Medical Civic Action Program … established sites in villages in remote locations to provide free medical and dental attention for poor villagers. … The makeshift jungle clinics always had big turnouts with some patients walking for several days to get treatments. The SEALS also gained critical intelligence that was valuable in planning future operations. … Grateful patients would provide the location of rebel strongholds and routes used to smuggle weapons.”
Alden M. Mills, a Navy SEAL who helped find a man responsible for 60,000 deaths in Bosnia: “His team traveled in search of Dr. Death in a bread van to maintain the secrecy of their mission. … Alden and his team spent 11 nights and 12 days on a cliff taking photographs. … Eventually they obtained a positive ID and another team was sent in to secure the target and deliver him to the Hague to be tried as a war criminal.”
Lt. Col. Eileen Gillan, now a doctor at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, who was a National Guard flight surgeon in Iraq: “She was responsible for keeping 100 pilots healthy and safe to fly. Eileen would fly on the Blackhawk helicopters when they went on transport missions. She was required to learn to fly the Blackhawk and also experienced shooting the door machine gun. She was lucky and never took any enemy fire while in flight.”
Marine Corps Sgt. Bryan Triplett, who served in Afghanistan from 2018 to 2021: “Initially they were told 400 Taliban had overrun the airport. … They found close to 400 Afghani citizens who had broken through the perimeter and were trying to escape from the Taliban. There was a group of Marines that encountered several Taliban, and they quickly and permanently eliminated the threat.”
Schuppe said he has found veterans from referrals by friends. He wants to find as many more as he can, and photograph and interview them all to add to his website.
“All of the people I have interviewed are nice people, humble, full of gratitude,” he said. “There is something in people that join the military, even if they didn’t join initially voluntarily. It’s about serving other people, about serving something bigger than yourself.”
To suggest veterans for Schuppe to interview, visit facesoffreedom.us/refer-a-veteran.html. To read interviews, visit facesoffreedom.us/veterans-by-conflict.html.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
