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(left to right) After watching a documentary of S.C. Guardsman Capt. Alan Wilson, teachers Diane Sherbane and daughter Kortney listen as Perry McLeod, a Time Warner Cable Teacher of the Year from Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, S.C. and Buddy Sturgis of the S.C. Military Museum talk about “The Next Greatest Generation” project. Photo by: Maj. Scott Bell, S.C. National Guard Historian |
By: Maj. Scott Bell, S.C. National Guard Historian
MYRTLE BEACH, SC – On the heels of Ken Burns’ successful World War II documentary about the “Greatest Generation” for PBS called “The War,” teachers at last week’s S.C. Council for the Social Studies conference in Myrtle Beach learned first-hand from South Carolina’s award-winning digital storyteller Perry McLeod about how they too can involve their students in creating documentaries.
McLeod, a history teacher at Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, S.C. teamed up with the S.C. National Guard three years ago to begin work on “The Next Greatest Generation” project. He says the success of his previous project called “The Greatest Generation” featuring members of American Legion Post #6 like Medal of Honor recipient Col. Charles Murray of Lexington, S.C. was the motivation for his students’ current documentary series.
“The Greatest Generation is passing away so quickly now and many of their very inspirational and personal stories of duty, honor, selfless service and sacrifice are being lost to history,” said McLeod. “I just feel that if we don’t start a proactive approach to gathering stories of what former Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Dick Myers calls the ‘next greatest generation,’ their stories will be lost as well,” said McLeod.
McLeod’s efforts to have student-produced documentaries of South Carolina war veterans spanning from World War II to today’s S.C. National Guard Soldiers serving in the Global War on Terrorism will be featured this fall on S.C. ETV’s knowitall.org website called “Generations of Heroes.” The documentaries featuring recent Iraqi war veterans like S.C. National Guardsman Capt. Alan Wilson, the son of South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson are also planned to be aired by Time Warner Cable later this fall.
