"If you want to know what it felt like to be there, to be part of the greatest generation, you have to talk to them," said Walter Wilson, from Schenectady.
Wilson started talking to World War II veterans a few months back as part of a final paper at SUNY Albany. At each stop he took a picture.
"I kept coming back to this photo," said Wilson as he held up a picture of a woman named Kate Frentzos. "It was one of the strongest images I'd ever taken. I wanted to do something with it.
He thought about the stories he heard, like 99-year-old Kate Frentzos'. She was a nurse in the Army who traveled from North Africa to Corsica and Italy.
"She told me about getting the chance to fly in a B17," said Wilson.
"He said, 'you're going to lie down in the nose of the plane and look out the glass.' That was a thrill, absolute thrill," said Frentzos as she shared the story with FOX23 News.
The stories, coming not just from Frentzos, but also about a dozen others.
"How many of those stories are out there?" Asked Wilson.
And how many are we losing? How many lessons could we be learning?
"We came together as a country and did that and we have to remember how, and these people know," said Wilson.
Now he is documenting it in text and audio.
"I just wanted to do it," said Frentzos. "I wouldn't have missed being in the service for anything," said Frentzos.
"These people went there and interrupted their lives and did something incredible and every one of them thinks they were just doing their job," said Wilson.
"It was exciting more than anything else and I was not scared at all," said Frentzos.
Walter has been talking to these veterans and now he wants the rest of the country to hear how these heroes served during times of war and once they came back home.
"When I came home I was alive and I lived for my country," said Frentzos.
Wilson wants to put these pictures and stories together into an exhibit. He would even like it to go nationwide. He needs your help. If you want to you can visit his website.
