Jack Damaska

Jack Damaska is originally from Beaver Falls, PA.  As a professional baseball player, Jack credits the Cardinals with getting him into military service.  He was asked if he wanted to go in the reserves.  He went with the combat engineers and was stationed for six months at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  He spent time in the reserves while playing baseball and was recalled during the Berlin Crisis.  He missed his first year of AAA ball by going into the service and when he was discharged, he joined the Atlanta Crackers AAA International team.

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The most frequent question is, how did you get five, middle-aged Vietnam veterans into that room?  It was a tight fit.

From a technical perspective, what mattered most to us is that we had good audio.  Of course, our single video camera was rolling, but it couldn’t keep up in such a tight space.  But at least we could record a solid audio track to make up for what the video camera couldn’t capture. That’s at least what we planned for whenever Ken Thomas informed us that he was coming to his oral history interview with “some of my friends.”   At once?  “Yeah, we’ll be there at 10am.  Five of us.”

Five guys to squeeze into the room above–our makeshift storeroom-turned-recording studio on the second floor of Carnegie Free Library in Beaver Falls, PA.   Luckily for us, 19 June 2013 was a pleasant summer day–not too hot or humid, conditions that can make our little studio unbearable when we have to close the windows and turn off the fan whenever we begin recording.

But as things go, our first mass interview was a great success, but the dynamic was unlike anything that we’ve encountered before.  The men–long-time friends and admitted brothers-in-arms–relied on each other to help tell their stories.  Their narrative camaraderie and shared experiences made the interview thoughtful and interesting, and their respect for each other’s service was obvious and heartfelt.  Such was the result of our interesting experiment that crammed five guys into a small room and asked them to tell us a story.