The Greatest Generation

continued

After he's written up the interviews, Kapanowski uses his own photos plus the vet's service photos to create an eight-by-ten framed collage mounted on wood. "I go back and give the collages to every guy as a gift," he says. "All these guys are amazing ... They were the greatest generation, and I like them a lot better than my generation. We get things too easy and take them for granted."

Kapanowski intends to keep interviewing vets "until they're all gone or until I can't find them anymore." His life goal, though, is not to be a historian. "I want to be an astronaut when I grow up," he says with a shy smile. "First I'll join the air force and become a test pilot, and then I'll become an aeronautics engineer. History is important to understand when I'm young, but I want to make it when I'm older."   

[Originally published in July, 2012.]