The hair on my arms still stands up when I think about how beautiful it was
As the last witnesses to the Second World War pass from the world at a rate of hundreds of thousands per decade, one man has made it his life's work to ensure their voices outlast their bodies. Rishi Sharma — a son of Indian immigrants with no military lineage — has spent ten years crossing America with a recording device, sitting with more than 3,000 combat veterans and capturing what no archive of documents can replicate: the living, breathing weight of firsthand experience. With only 30,000 of the original 700,000 survivors remaining, his project, Remember WWII, stands as a quiet act of civilizational memory — a recognition that when a generation's last witness falls silent, something in the moral fabric of a nation falls silent with them.
- The arithmetic is brutal: 670,000 WWII veterans have died in the last decade alone, and the remaining 30,000 are vanishing faster than institutions can respond.
- What is being lost is not merely biography but irreplaceable moral testimony — the kind that lives in a trembling voice or a veteran's arm hair rising at the memory of a flag raised on Iwo Jima.
- Sharma began with nothing more than a recording device and a Southern California neighborhood, then built a nationwide map of veterans to find, driven entirely by donations and urgency.
- Each completed interview is returned to the veteran's own family, turning preservation into an intimate gift — a great-grandparent's voice handed down like an heirloom.
- The window is closing within a single decade, after which Sharma's 3,000 recordings will be among the only direct, unmediated human voices left from that war.
Rishi Sharma has spent a decade doing something deceptively simple: driving across America with a recording device, knocking on doors, and asking World War II combat veterans to talk. The result is more than 3,000 interviews — hours of firsthand testimony from men and women who were there, captured before the arithmetic makes it impossible.
A decade ago, roughly 700,000 of these veterans were still alive in the United States. Today, about 30,000 remain. Sharma understood the math early, and it's what set him in motion. He started modestly, canvassing his Southern California neighborhood, then built a visual map of veterans across the country he wanted to reach. He named the effort Remember WWII, funds it through donations, and when an interview is finished, gives the recording directly to the veteran's family.
One recent subject was Nils Mockler, a 100-year-old Marine from Yorktown, New York, who served as a combat intelligence scout and fought at Iwo Jima. When Sharma asked what it meant to see the American flag raised on that island, Mockler didn't pause: 'The hair on my arms still stands up when I think about how beautiful it was.' That response — physical, immediate, unrepeatable — is exactly what Sharma's recordings exist to hold.
Sharma himself has no military background. His parents immigrated from India, and he came to this work not through inheritance but through conviction. He speaks of these veterans as the moral compass of American society — not sentimentally, but as a practical observation about what the country stands to lose. When the last of them are gone, the books and documentaries will remain. But the direct, unmediated voice of someone who was there — the voice that still trembles or steadies at the memory — will exist only in what people like Sharma thought to record in time.
Rishi Sharma has spent the last decade doing something that sounds simple until you consider the arithmetic: he has driven across the country recording the voices of World War II combat veterans before they are gone. More than 3,000 interviews. Hours of conversation with men and women who were there—who saw what happened, who lived through it, who can still tell you what it felt like.
A decade ago, there were roughly 700,000 of these veterans alive in America. Today, there are about 30,000. The math is relentless. In another ten years, probably fewer than that. Sharma knows this. It's why he started, and why he hasn't stopped.
He began modestly, driving around his Southern California neighborhood with a recording device, knocking on doors, asking people to talk. But the work grew. He created a map—a visual inventory of places he wanted to reach, veterans he wanted to find. He named the project Remember WWII. It runs on donations. When he finishes an interview, he gives the recording to the family. The veteran gets to hear their own story preserved. Their children and grandchildren get to hear it too.
Recently, Sharma sat down with Nils Mockler, a 100-year-old Marine from Yorktown, New York. Mockler was a combat intelligence scout. His first battle was Iwo Jima—one of the bloodiest engagements in Marine Corps history, and also one of the most symbolically charged. When Sharma asked him what it meant to see the American flag being raised on that island, Mockler's answer was immediate and physical: "The hair on my arms still stands up when I think about how beautiful it was." That's the kind of testimony that lives in a recording now. That's what gets preserved.
Sharma himself has no military background. His parents came to the United States from India. He didn't grow up in a military family, didn't inherit a connection to this history. What he inherited, or what he chose, was something else: a conviction that these stories matter, that they shouldn't disappear, that there's something in the testimony of people who lived through that war that the country needs to keep hearing.
He has said it plainly: "There are real superhero World War II vets out there, and I want to meet them." That was in 2016. A decade later, the urgency has only sharpened. He talks about these veterans as the moral compass of American society—not in a sentimental way, but as a statement of fact. They've been the ones steering the ship, he says. Their advice, their example, their presence has mattered. When they're gone, something irreplaceable goes with them.
The clock is running. In the next decade or so, the last of them will be gone. The interviews Sharma has already recorded—3,000 of them—will be all that's left. Not all that's left of the war itself; there are plenty of books and documentaries and archives. But all that's left of the direct, unmediated voice of someone who was there. All that's left of Nils Mockler's hair standing on end at the sight of a flag. All that's left of the moral clarity that generation carried into the world.
Notable Quotes
For the last 10 years, I've been on the mission to interview every single World War II combat veteran. And I've quite honestly spent every single day of the last 10 years doing that.— Rishi Sharma
Because for so long they have been the moral compass of our society. Just the advice that they impart silently steers the ship of this country.— Rishi Sharma
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did you decide to do this? You have no family connection to the military.
I think that's actually why I could do it. I wasn't coming to these conversations with a personal stake or a family story I already knew. I was coming as a witness, as someone who wanted to listen.
But there are historians, institutions, the Library of Congress has oral history projects. Why you? Why now?
Because they're dying. Not in some abstract way—in the next ten years, most of them will be gone. And I can drive to Yorktown and sit with a 100-year-old Marine and ask him what he saw. I can do that today. Tomorrow might be too late.
You've recorded 3,000 interviews. That's a staggering number. Do you ever feel like you're racing against time?
Every single day. That's not hyperbole. I've spent every single day of the last ten years on this. Because the math doesn't lie. We went from 700,000 to 30,000. That's not a slow decline. That's a cliff.
What do you do with the recordings after you finish?
I give them to the families. That's the whole point. These aren't going into some archive where they sit. They go home. The veteran hears their own story. Their kids hear it. Their grandkids hear it. It becomes part of the family.
You call them the moral compass of the country. That's a big claim.
Is it? Look at what they did. Look at what they sacrificed. And then look at the advice they've given, silently, just by existing and being present. That steers things. When they're gone, we lose that.
What happens when the last one is gone?
We have the recordings. We have their voices. But we lose the possibility of asking a new question, of hearing a new story. We lose the living connection to that moment in history. That's what I'm trying to preserve—not just the facts, but the presence.