It wasn't a serious wound, just a glancing blow from a piece of shrapnel on what's known as my "right flank." I spent two weeks in a series of hospitals in Belgium sleeping between clean sheets and eating anything in sight, and two more weeks working my way back to the front through the replacement depot system.

These days I can't even show you the scar. I wouldn't anyway. I'd have to take down my pants to do so.

I'd even like to say I have forgotten that day in the snow. I should. Sixty years is a long time to remember what essentially was a trivial wound, even if it wasn't a trivial day. Our company lost seven killed and 33 wounded in an effort to dislodge an enemy strong point.

But I haven't forgotten for one big reason. Over the years I've come to realize my lasting wound is not the one to my flesh, but the one to my psyche. As with many other veterans, World War II was the great event of my life. It's left a mark on my memory that will never go away, even though I wish it would. I can't forget it and neither can a diminishing number of veterans of "The Good War," as some now call it. As if there can be a war that's good.

As we veterans are repeatedly reminded, we are now in our 80's and even though we're still alive, we're dying off at the rate of a thousand or more a day. Soon there will be none of us left. Like the Gray and the Blue of the Civil War, we will have marched into silence--and into history.

To that end, those of us who remain from the years 1941­45 like myself are being sought by a project called Stories of Service, which is being run by a non-profit group intent on recording the memories of World War II veterans while they are still alive. The end result of these audio and video interviews will be deposited in the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution for future generations of Americans to absorb.

The interviews and recordings are being made by young people, in part because of their expertise, but also so they will get an idea of what the war and those who served were like.

Right now, because Dec. 16 starts the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, the project is seeking veterans who experienced that turning point in the war. But the project also is looking for veterans of Iwo Jima and Okinawa for the same reasons. Those 60th anniversaries are coming up soon, too.

I applaud this effort; I'm even taking part in it, though I have some doubts as to how reliable memory may be after 60 years.

If you're a veteran of any of these battles, or if you know of a veteran of this time, you can join in the effort by first checking out the project web site at www.stories-of-service.org and then by volunteering to contribute your memories.

Those who do will be asked to write a five-minute recollection of what they remember, and then will be asked to read it. They will also be asked to submit to an interview so those working on the project can get an idea how to make a digital disc of your presentation with illustrations and background music. The five minutes recollection will be the voice-over to the pictures and music. This combined effort is what will go on file in Washington for future generations to examine. Each vet will also get a copy for themselves, of course.

Bulge veterans are to be honored with local and national ceremonies this year. The same will be true for veterans of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 2005.

And we will all be a part of history, even more a part than we already are.

But gathering our memories won't heal the wound the war made in our souls. It won't bring back the youth we lost somewhere along the road to victory. And it certainly won't return the dead who still lie buried in foreign fields.

Nor apparently will it have much effect on the current conflict raging in the Middle East. That war will leave its own collection of wounded to harvest its collection of memories for the rest of their lives. And one day perhaps the veterans of battles like those fought in Fallujah--those who are left--will sit down to tell their stories to younger Americans.

One can only hope they will listen.