1 man is on a mission to capture stories of Cajun WWII vets

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Listening intently behind the camera, Jason Theriot has recorded more than 200 World War II veterans as part of a two-decade passion project to document their oral histories before they are all gone.

He’s hoping to find even more.

“I had an idea to interview my grandfather, maybe some of his friends, about their World War II experiences and write a short book about them,” Theriot said. “I had taken journalism at LSU and I had a niche for writing and had a bit of an obsession about World War II going back to when I was a little kid.”

He said when he approached his grandfather about the book, he was immediately rebuffed.

“I told him, ‘Paw-Paw, I’d like to interview you about your World War II experiences and write a book about you and some of your friends.’ His response was, ‘Oh, Jason, that’s not something we like to brag about or tell stories about. I don’t even know where any of my friends served, it was just something we did as a duty to our country a long time ago.’ ”

But Theriot said he didn’t give up. He went to the local bookstore and found the booklet “The Honor Roll of Iberia Parish World War II Veterans.”

“It was produced in 1945 after all the veterans came home and it was in alphabetical order with about 1,500 men and women who had served with a caption that said what branch they served in and a little bio and photo,” he said. “I brought the book to my grandfather and told him to take a look at it and tell me if he knew anyone in it and if they might be interested in doing an interview with me.”

Theriot said his grandfather — who grew up in Boudreaux Canal just south of Houma, ran a shrimp factory that “was about two bayous down from Theriot,” “went to church eight days a week”...