Not everyone can be a storyteller, but everyone has a story to tell. Harry Batdorf Jr. says he knows both to be true.
The factory laborer at Boise Inc. admits he doesn’t have a lot of writing experience, but after several bursts of confidence and a number of self-doubting setbacks, Batdorf recently compiled, edited and self-published “Fifty Stars on the Flag,” a book sharing the personal stories of 50 Koochiching County veterans.
“I have no skills as a storyteller,” Batdorf writes in the book. “Anyone can do what I did. After all, I am simply relaying the stories of others.”
Every penny the book raises will benefit hospitalized veterans, Batdorf said, adding that as a veteran himself, he has been the beneficiary of veteran’s benefits.
Batdorf said the effort to compile such a book stemmed from three ideas about seven years ago.
He said the first came to him while reading “The Last Good War: The Faces and Voices of World War II.” Batdorf said he remembers being moved by the book and was left thinking a similar version with local voices should be done.
“(Veterans) are all around us,” he said of the veterans living in Koochiching County. “I decided I was going to capture a few stories.”
With the idea in mind, he got in touch with a self-published author who gave Batdorf the confidence that he could turn his idea into a reality.
The third point behind “Fifty Stars on the Flag” was Batdorf’s personal regret that he never asked his father, Harry Batdorf Sr., who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, about his experience in history’s most well-known war. Batdorf was 22 years old when Harry Sr. died in 1978.
“This is my attempt at atonement for letting my dad’s war account slip away … now lost forever,” Batdorf writes in the section of his book highlighting his father.
The 50 stories in the book are told verbatim and were selected entirely at random, Batdorf said. Some veterans he knew, others were people he had never met before.
“I am in awe of all of them,” he said.
A soft-spoken Batdorf speaks highly of the men and women who shared their stories with him. More than once he explains how humbled and privileged he feels to have had the opportunity to listen and write about the tales of those who served the country.
As Batdorf holds the publication carefully and proudly, almost as an act of respect to the stories between the covers, he discusses how much he learned through compiling the book that even with help from friends, took him two years to finish.
“I learned that some of the stories are connected just by coincidence,” he said, adding the book covers several generations of veterans. “I learned real combat veterans would come home and never say a word about it to anyone … People were extremely humble.”
Batdorf encouraged people to read about the experiences those who live and work around us lived and stressed that there are so many more veterans out there who haven’t shared their story.
“At least interview your family members before they’re gone,” he writes.
“Fifty Stars on the Flag” is available locally at the Coffee Landing Cafe, Ronnings, Koochiching Historical Museum, Polkinghorne’s Hardware Hank in Littlefork and www.amazon.com.
