Veterans Legacy Program | Student Contest | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

About the Contest

An infantryman is lowered into a tunnel by members of the reconnaissance platoon.

US Army soldiers near Duc Pho, Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, April 24, 1967 (National Archives)

Students in grades 6–12 are eligible. As part of the Legacies of Service contest, participants can submit an original essay, report, eulogy, mini-podcast, mini-documentary, poem, or song that highlights the sacrifices, strengths, and legacies of a Vietnam Veteran who was honorably laid to rest in an NCA national, state, territorial, or tribal Veterans cemetery. All participants are encouraged to upload their work to the Veterans Legacy Memorial page.

Students, teachers, and parents can submit student entries here by 8:00 a.m. EST on Friday, May 2, 2025, to be eligible for the Legacies of Service Awards. A panel of experts familiar with the awards will review the entries. Staff from the Gilder Lehrman Institute and the National Cemetery Administration will determine the winners. Entries will be assessed based on their depth of research, use of primary sources, historical integrity, and quality of writing and production. Students’ work will be reviewed and judged according to their grade levels. Winners will be notified in late May and announced on Memorial Day 2025.

Submit Your Entry

Where to Start Your Research

Students can use Activity Sheet 10 from the “Vietnam Veterans: Legacies of Service, 1964–2016” lesson plan unit to help them identify Veterans and conduct research. The activity sheet provides several research tips and suggests websites that could be helpful for researching Veterans’ and service members’ stories.

Sharing Veteran Stories

We encourage students to share their Veteran biographies with their local communities. Examples include presentations at their schools, town hall meetings, local historical societies, VFWs, regional newsgroups, and more. We also highly encourage students to submit their work to the Veterans Legacy Memorial website.

Entry Requirements and Guidelines

For All Entries

For All Entries:

Who can submit: Students in grades 6–12 can submit a project or a teacher or a parent/guardian can submit the student-produced project to the awards website on the student’s behalf.
Topics/Theses: Submissions must focus on the Vietnam War service of an individual who is interred in an NCA, federal, state, or tribal site, and promote their legacy through the use of primary and secondary sources.
- Service members who served in auxiliary roles are included in the contest.

Written Submissions (Reports/Eulogies)

Word Count: Submissions must be approximately 250–400 words in length. (This word count does not include the title, footnotes/endnotes, or bibliography.)
Framework for judging: Projects will be judged on quality of historical research and analysis, and clarity of approach.
Font and Page Style: Submissions must be written in Times New Roman, 12-point font with one-inch margins at the top, bottom, and sides. Essays must be free of teacher comments/corrections or other notes.
Primary Sources: Submissions must integrate primary source documents pertaining to the Vietnam War and the service of the featured individual.
Secondary sources: Top projects will use scholarly secondary sources, not textbooks.
Citations: The best submissions will have clear, complete, and consistent citations. Students must document their sources and evidence using any one of the following formats: MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian. Online sources must be cited using creator/author, title, and publisher as well as URLs.
Bibliography: Each submission is required to include a bibliography listing all sources, dividing the bibliography between primary and secondary sources.

Poem/Song

Length: Works should be at least 8–10 lines.
Framework for judging: The poem/song must provide a rich and detailed description of a Veteran and engage in reflection/analysis of their service.
Organization: Works should follow an internal logic and structure.
Bibliography: Each submission is required to include a separate bibliography listing all sources, dividing the bibliography between primary and secondary sources.

Mini Podcast/Documentary

Length: Productions must be approximately 2–4 minutes in length.
Primary Sources: Productions must integrate primary source documents pertaining to the history of the Vietnam War, including audio-based and/or image sources (archival audio and/or photographs). Top submissions will draw upon primary sources to highlight Veteran service.
Secondary sources: Top productions will use scholarly secondary sources, not textbooks.
Organization: Top productions will have a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
Citations: Students must provide full citations of all sources. The NPR Ethics Handbook offers a good introduction to how best to cite audio sources.
Bibliography: Each submission is required to include a separate bibliography listing all sources, dividing the bibliography between primary and secondary sources.

The Veterans Legacy Memorial

The Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM) is the nation’s first digital platform dedicated entirely to the memory of nearly ten million Veterans interred in VA national cemeteries, VA-funded state, tribal, and territory Veteran cemeteries, Department of Defense-managed cemeteries, National Park Service cemeteries, and private cemeteries within and outside the United States.

Since 1996, VLM has included veterans laid to rest in private cemeteries and received a VA-provided headstone, flat marker, niche cover, or medallion.

Students can find a Veteran to research on the Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM) website.
Individual Veteran profile pages are populated with military service and cemetery information.
Publicly available information gathered from VA records includes service branch and seal, birth and death dates, rank, war period, decorations, emblem of belief, and cemetery information.
Interactive features allow family, friends, and the public to submit Tributes (comments), images, biographical information, and historical documents.
Family, friends, and the public can create a timeline for their veterans' military service and personal achievements and generate a Word Cloud that describes their Veteran.
The site also allows visitors to share veteran profile pages by email and post them on social media. Users can “Follow a Veteran” to receive email alerts when new content is added to that veteran’s page.