The UCF History Department and Center for Humanities and Digital Research are are partnering with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration to bring the stories of U.S. veterans buried in national cemeteries to life as part of the Veterans Legacy Program. The Orlando Sentinel featured the Veterans Legacy Program’s upcoming research trip to France in an article published on June 29.
The article states: “UCF students and faculty members are building an app that will allow visitors at the Aisne-Marne and Meuse-Argonne cemeteries in northeast France to scan headstones with their smartphones and learn about the people buried beneath them. More than 16,000 Americans are buried at the two cemeteries. The UCF group, which also includes three employees and a woman who has taken classes at the university, will focus on 15 people with ties to Florida.
The project’s technical lead, Amy Larner Giroux, said the group hopes allowing visitors to instantly read the stories of people who died during the war will help bring their stories to life. They’ll also record the GPS coordinates of the headstones so people can quickly see where the fallen service members were buried.
“There’s something more visceral about being at that grave site and being able to read about that soldier,” said Larner Giroux, the computer research specialist for the university’s Center for Humanities and Digital Research.”
In all, about 30 students and seven employees are included in the project this summer.” Read more at orlandosentinel.com.
Discover more about UCF’s Veteran’s Legacy Program at vlp.cah.ucf.edu.