Teenager chronicling veterans’ stories attends Normandy commemorations

In ninth grade, Luke Basso began documenting the stories of veterans. He created a You Tube channel to preserve the experiences of soldiers who served from World War II to current conflicts. Basso skipped his high school graduation this year to go to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley he has always had an interest in history.

I’ve always liked history especially military and political history. It wasn’t until 2021 in 9th grade when I started my You Tube page Filmperia getting veterans to preserve their stories. I originally wanted to get the last living Korean and WWII veterans, but there’s barely any of them left. There’s barely any of them left. So I’ve had veterans from all conflicts. And not just veterans. I’ve had Holocaust survivors or victims of Communism on my channel.
 
As a student you could have just gone and talked to them and learned about them yourself. But you’ve actually done videos and put it on You Tube so that other people can see or hear their stories. How did this grow? How did this become a continuing project?