My Life, My Story #3: Simon: When work is your hobby

If you were asked to tell your life story, what would you talk about the most?

Your family? Your career? Love? Loss? That one day in your 20s that “changed everything?”

When people first hear about the “My Life, My Story” project, many assume that the stories we hear from Veterans focus solely on their time in the military, or on combat and heroism in the battlefield.

Not quite.

We certainly hear and collect “war stories” in our project, and you’ll hear some of those on our podcast. But more often the Veterans we interview weren’t on the front lines of battle. Maybe they were supply clerks or mechanics or served between wars. And even if the Veteran did see extensive combat, he/she doesn’t always want to talk about it much, and that’s fine with us.

Instead, we try to give Veterans space to talk about things that have meant the most to them over their lifetime. As a result, a lot of our stories focus on things very unlike war. In this episode of our podcast, for example, Simon focused most of his attention on… a department store.

After listening, if you’re feeling in the Christmas-y mood, take a look at this article about the Yuletide traditions in Chicago that Simon discusses in his story.