Conversations with Brad Hoopes

Today we’re excited to be connecting with Brad Hoopes again. If you haven’t already, we suggest you check out our prior conversation with them here.

Brad, always such a pleasure connecting with you and thank you for sharing your stories, insights and inspiring messages with our community. We’re looking forward to getting the download and what you have been up to since our last interview, but first can you briefly introduce yourself to folks who might have missed the prior conversation.
My name is Brad Hoopes. I have a passionate project, Remember and Honor, in which I interview and preserved the stories of our veterans. I got started with this 20 years ago when I read an article about how the Library of Congress was starting a program to collect veteran stories. I thought, why not do something on the local level to feed this program, so I went out, bought a video camera, and began interviewing veterans. What started out as a fun side hobby to fulfill my love of history, so turned into an all-consuming effort to honor, assist and advocate for our veterans. To date I have interviewed 600+ veterans. The main objective has been to just get the story down on permanent record for the veteran and their family. A secondary objective, only done with the permission from the veteran, is to get their story out to the public so that the public can learn about our veterans and what they experienced. For years have done this by donating copies of the interview to various local, state and national institutions such as the Library of Congress. In addition to this, a couple of years ago I started a channel to upload these interviews for the public to access and watch. Side projects to the above have included writing a book and publishing a veteran-oriented magazine.

Awesome, so we reached out because we wanted to hear all about what you have been up to since we last connected.
I have continued on much as I have since our last interview. Much like it did for so many, Covid threw a curveball at me. It forced the closure of the magazine and veteran interviews have dropped to a trickle. The only rule I have ever had for my project is that I have no rules. I believe that anyone who went off to serve deserves to have their story heard, if they want to tell it. Thus I will interview any veteran who is interested in doing so. With this thought though, in the past I did concentrate on and scrambled to get the World War II & Korean stories, as the clock was ticking with that group. Of the 400 WWII Veterans I interviewed, there are now only 9 that I am aware are still with us. My big push now is for the Vietnam Veterans, as age and Agent Orange has now made the clock tick with this group. The biggest development since our last interview has been starting up the Youtube channel (youtube.com/@rememberandhonorstories). Doing this has killed a couple birds with one stone: 1) made it easier for family and friends to share their veteran’s story as opposed to previously having to pass around a DVD. 2) made it easier for the public to access these stories.

Alright, so let’s do something a bit more fast-paced and lighthearted. We call this our lightning round and we’ll ask you a few quick questions.

• Favorite Movie: Silverado
• Favorite Book: Centennial
• Favorite TV Show: No watch much TV
• Favorite Band or Artist: Eagles
• Sweet or Savory: Savory
• Mountains or Beach: Mountains
• Favorite Sport (to watch): Football
• Favorite Sport (to play): basketball
• Did you play sports growing up (if so which ones): football, basketball
• As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up: pilot
• French Fries or Onion Rings: French Fries
• Favorite Cartoon growing up: Bug’s Bunny
• Favorite Childhood movie: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• Favorite Breakfast Food: BACON!!!

Was there a moment in your career that you can tell us about that illustrates or demonstrates the kind of person you are, your approach, ethos, etc.
Like I said earlier, the project started out as just an interesting side hobby, but soon turned into an all-consuming effort to help, honor and advocate for our veterans in any way I could. I can tell you the exact moment that shift occurred and the trajectory took a sharp turn. I had interviewed a WWII veteran. His wife called me the next morning and said she just wanted to thank me for doing the interview because she and the kids didn’t know his story (so often the case) and they were anxious to get the DVD and watch it. She said she also wanted to let me know that last night was the first time in 60+ years that he had slept through the night. He had stuff he needed to get off his chest. From that day on, I pretty much dropped everything else I was doing and concentrated on the project.