“Diminishing Generations” sets its voyage on the Battleship USS Iowa on November 14th, with heroes cast.
Jodi Champagne’s (Author, Photographer, Historian,) latest project is an exquisite in-depth look at our Veterans, as she traveled across the country collecting their stories, valuing our nations history from those who actually made it. “Diminishing Generations” is a personal interactive adventure in book and video in a high-tech presentation never done before. Champagne chose the Battleship USS Iowa as the place to launch her latest accomplishment, “Diminishing Generations” a biographic and photographic journey with a heroes cast of Veterans to autograph their lives in memoirs set to a series of books about WWll, Korea and Vietnam. The event will take place on November 14, 2015 from 10:00am to 4:00pm at the Battleship USS Iowa located 250 So. Harbor Blvd, San Pedro, CA at Berth 87 at the Los Angeles World Cruise Port Terminal at the LA Waterfront / Port of Los Angeles. Attending from 12:00 noon to 2:00pm many of the interviewed Heroes will be on hand to meet, greet and sign autographs. The event is FREE, a tour of the ship, if desired, is $10.00. Proceeds from the sale of 3 – book series “Diminishing Generations” , go towards the Gary Sinise Foundation, who serves our nation by honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in needs by creating and supporting programs to educate, inspire, strengthen and build communities.
“These books are powerful, emotional and very personal as veterans from WWII, Korean and Vietnam talk about life in wartime as well as their return home. They never had the opportunity or never chosen to share their stories and perspectives until now. “I started this project because I feel we need to hear the stories from these veterans, whom we are losing everyday” declares Champagne “I never, realized the magnitude of this journey I would take with these remarkable people, The excitement, the emotions and frustrations as I let them freely talk. The loss of our veterans I’ve interviewed, while some others I was scheduled to interview unfortunately passed before I had the chance. Guided by my heart, I decided to call it Diminishing Generations, because we are losing these veterans every day and we lose their stories along with them.”
“Each of our veterans has a story, most untold, unheard before now. Like for instance Ford Rice – WWll, a 100-year-old Navy Veteran who was at Pearl Harbor, as the Japanese attacked, who watch the eyes of the first kamikaze fly in blowing everything up. He never uttered a word of this to his friends or family Mr. Rice agreed to tell us his stories of his 20 years in the Navy . It will bring tears to your eyes, of a frightening world he survived for pride in his country.” Recounts Champagne. Or there is the story of Robert Smalley-Korea: Robert was amazed at the helicopter pilots. He thought they had to be “some kind of crazy” to do what they had to do and go where they had to go. Most of the time in Vietnam our soldiers were put into a battle zone right in the middle of the enemies. Being around that much artillery fire the helicopters stand a good chance of getting hit, and Robert was in a helicopter that was shot down.
The Diminishing Generations project is utilizing Augmented Reality technology, which places digital content between the user and the physical world. In this case, the AR-enabled apps allow the user to “scan” the images of the veterans in the books and access additional content such as videos and photo galleries, sharing more of each veteran’s story. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and image recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the books. Who could have imagined videos coming right off the pages of a book?
You will have the ability to hear and see the veterans tell their personal stories of war directly from themselves, Diminishing Generations app to learn more about our veterans and their experiences can be downloaded at The Apple Store or Google Play online Apps for both Android and iPhones.
For more information visit Http://www.jodichampagne.com or contact us via email at jodi@jodichampagne.com
# #
Interviews available so please contact CLW Public Relations, (805) 584-1222 or email Cherielynnae@sbcglobal.net
Jodi Champagne Author & Photographer 
Jodi
Are you doing any more interviews with Vietnam vets? I missed your last interview because that knucklehead brother in law Ken Kuhnhofer didn’t tell me until you were already there and I had other obligations elsewhere that day.
And Saturday I get a call from Ken saying he has your book and is stopping by. What book??? and how come he didn’t tell me about it or your signing until it was to late. Anyway enjoyed the book and looking forward to seeing my dads story and interview.
I think it’s great what you have done for all vets.
LikeLike
Hi Dan 🙂
Man I was hoping to have gotten you in this book BUT that’s ok 🙂 I am continuing this project. So If you are willing to talk with me I would be honored if you would allow me to interview you. Just for your information I am not doing the second edition at the same pace lol.. I am heading to China here soon and of course Christmas is coming. If we could do it in between that would be great 🙂 So funny I did both your dad and Ken last Christmas 🙂
I’m glad you liked the books 🙂 Veterans are all special to me.. Specially these generations.. I’m doing what I can in my own way to preserve our history..
My email is jodi@jodichampagne.com if you could email me your contact information so we can get you set up 🙂
Thank you for contacting me.
Jodi
LikeLike