The Brookings Rotary Club welcomed author and storyteller V.J. Smith for a powerful program connecting small-town roots, military service, and the untold stories many veterans carried home in silence. Smith, who grew up in Eureka, South Dakota, described a childhood shaped by the presence of World War II veterans who were “the bedrock of the community,” yet rarely spoke about what they experienced. “They didn’t want to talk about what they had seen,” Smith said. “Before the Vietnam War, we didn’t even have the language people use today. It was ‘shell shock’ - or worse yet, ‘he has a drinking problem.’”
Speaking in the American Legion setting, Smith called it “ironic” and meaningful, noting that nearly all the fathers he grew up around were Legion members. “That was the place to be,” he said. Smith shared how a book discovery in 2012 at the Brookings Book Company sparked a personal journey. After reading Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley, and watching the 2006 film adaptation, Smith felt compelled to learn more, not only about the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo, but about the quiet heroes in his own hometown.
“From October until Veterans Day in 2013, I went around and paid my respects at the graves of the six men who were, at the time, identified as being in that photograph,” Smith said. “The entire time I stood over those graves, I thought about the guys in my hometown, the ones that raised me. What could they see? What did they do? Because they didn’t talk.”
That experience led Smith to research and interview families connected to numerous Eureka veterans, selected based on personal ties and firsthand familiarity. “I had to have a personal connection with them,” Smith said. “I had to have been in their homes. That was important to me—knowing where they lived, where they worked.”
Smith recounted emotional conversations with veterans’ children and relatives, moments that often ended in tears. One story involved a Navy veteran whose daughter only knew “the dad she saw every day” until Smith uncovered details of his wartime service. “All you could do was hear weeping,” Smith said. “And then she said, ‘I’m proud of my dad.’”
Subsequently, Smith wrote the book Sentimental Journey based on information gleaned from his visits.
Smith emphasized that the work was deeply personal, and more emotionally demanding than his previous bestselling projects, including The Richest Man in Town. “This took a greater emotional toll on me,” Smith said, “because it made me remember where I came from—and people need to remember where they come from.”
As Smith closed, he returned to the enduring legacy of World War II veterans. “Tom Brokaw called them the greatest generation,” he said. “Because they were.”