RIVERBEND – Diana Maul Halstead never asked her father about the war.
She grew up under the shadow of World War II and came of age in the Vietnam era, but her dad, Alton native Henry Maul, never spoke about his experience as a prisoner of war in Germany. When Maul passed away in 1997, Halstead was devastated that his story had died with him.
But she was wrong. Her sister found Maul’s diary, and, 23 years after he had died, Halstead finally read it. She knew immediately that she had a new calling.
“Before you know it, I was reading through everything. I was researching everything,” Halstead remembered. “About three years later, I put it all together into a book, and that was my dad’s diary.”
“Writings From the Barbed Wire Hotel” is Maul’s memoir, written by Halstead. It’s an 800-page compilation of his diary entries, which included coded poetry and illustrations from his time in a POW camp, and Halstead’s own research into military photos, declassified documents, and other important artifacts from WWII.
But the project didn’t feel complete. Halstead was still shaken by how close she had come to losing this side of her father. She realized there were other veterans out there who, like Maul, hadn’t shared their experiences.
“There was just something nagging at me,” she said. “I came to realize my dad’s story almost died with him because he never spoke about it. I grew up in the Vietnam era. What about my classmates that don’t talk about their military service? What about friends of my dad’s? What about our service members today? If they don’t tell their stories, they are going to die with them.”
And so, a new project was born. Through her YouTube channel, “Legends of the Barbed Wire Hotel,” Halstead began interviewing veterans and documenting their stories.
A lot of her veterans hail from the Riverbend region. Her first interview — Rich Wickenhauser — lived in Godfrey and survived Iwo Jima. Rick Trudell tells the story of going to Norb’s Bar in Upper Alton with his father the night he was drafted for Vietnam. Halstead is currently editing her interview with Grafton Mayor Mike Morrow, who was in the service during 9/11.
She recently read a news story about WWII POW Robert Ryan, who, it turns out, graduated a year ahead of her father at Marquette Catholic High School. Ryan was a POW in Germany during WWII; in conversation, Halstead discovered he was in the same camp as her father at the same time, and the two of them never knew it.
Discovering these personal connections has been “mind-blowing,” Halstead said. But hearing the veterans’ stories and documenting them for the future generations is the most important part of her work. She hopes the interviews provide some peace for the veterans, many of whom are telling their stories for the first time, while also keeping history alive.
“It was things that you cannot unsee, yet these men keep these stories inside them,” she said. “Their stories are going to go away with them. We need to document them for our history. You know what they say. If you don’t understand history, you’re doomed to repeat it.”
Some of Halstead’s work, starting with her dad’s memoir, will be preserved in the Library of Congress in the coming months. In the meantime, she’ll continue to interview veterans and post on her YouTube page.
She encourages any veteran who is interested in sharing their story to contact her via her official Facebook page. She believes every military member has a journey that should be preserved.
“You are a cog in the wheel of the success of the United States military, and you deserve to have your individual story told,” she said. “I am doing this for the veteran’s great grandchildren’s great grandchildren. They will want to know the full story of their hero.”
