Google is teaming up with the *ahem* veteran storytellers at StoryCorps to help mark Veterans Day with a new oral history project. Google’s new animated Veterans Day Google Doodle features five veterans’ stories–one from each branch of the U.S. military. The stories come from a partnership with StoryCorps and, like most of the tales gathered by StoryCorps, they are gems about friendship, loss, hardship, hope, and love.
In addition to the new Doodle, Google is launching a story-collecting initiative called Veterans Voices. Would-be Studs Terkels are invited to interview a veteran in their life and upload the video to either the StoryCorps app or YouTube along with the hashtag #VeteransVoices. While YouTube allows for visual storytelling, veterans’ tales collected via the StoryCorps app will be submitted for permanent inclusion in the Library of Congress.
Google isn’t just helping veterans preserve their history for future generations. It is also helping them find new work, meaning, and success in their civilian lives. To celebrate National Veterans Small Business Week, Google is helping veteran-owned and veteran-led businesses by promoting them on Google Maps and making it easier for users to know who they are supporting.
The search giant also made it easier for service members to find civilian jobs by simply entering their military occupational speciality code directly into Google Search to see jobs that require similar skills. To further help veterans in their job searches, Google.org gave a $2.5 million grant to the USO (United Service Organizations) to provide training and career guidance for transitioning military personnel, military spouses, and veterans to earn a Google IT Support Professional Certificate.
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