By Andrew Cohen
Innovative and powerful leadership is evident throughout the Berkeley Law community, from students and alumni to faculty and staff. We highlight various examples to showcase how such leadership advances justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
In 2008 — as a middle school student — 2L Neil Gallagher started the oral history project Preserving the Stories to document the memories and insights of military veterans. Now a registered nonprofit, the initiative recently completed its 200th interview, some of which will soon be hosted by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.
Gallagher has been involved in several student organizations during law school, including the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, Ecology Law Quarterly, California Law Review, Legal Obstacles Veterans Encounter, Military Veterans at Berkeley Law, and the Post Conviction Advocacy Project. Previously, he owned a roofing company, served as a wildland firefighter, and co-founded a solar contracting firm.
Below, Gallagher describes the impetus behind Preserving the Stories, and how it has been shaped by his six-plus years in the U.S. Marine Corps and his time at Berkeley Law.
Sitting along the bedside of a World War II Marine Corps veteran in a Memphis hospice facility, we spent nearly three hours sharing memories of his life and time in the service. Despite his age, he spoke with poise and clarity, but the memory of losing his best friend eventually caught up with him. When I asked the name of his friend, he paused, eventually looked up, and said, “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
That moment stuck with me, not only due to the emotional weight of our conversation, but also for the realization that an entire lifetime of memories could go unrecorded, unacknowledged, and eventually lost — not only for the veteran being interviewed, but also for the friend he lost on a small Pacific Island 73 years prior.
I started Preserving the Stories as a middle school project, inspired by the service of my grandfathers during WWII. Like many of their generation, they rarely spoke of their time in the service and when they passed, their experiences were lost forever. I began seeking out veterans in my community, asking whether they might have known my grandfathers and hoping to better understand what they went through.
As I got older, the project grew, and the conversations I had with these veterans deepened. In addition to WWII veterans, I began interviewing veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars. Over time, I began to realize that these interviews captured not only military history, but also youth, fear, pride, moral injury, loss, and resilience.
These veterans began sharing memories they had never shared with their own family, and this trust carries an immense weight. The interviews were originally documented using only a tape recorder, but today they are recorded on video and posted on Preserving the Stories social media.
While I can post the interviews on Instagram fairly quickly, it takes a bit longer to edit the videos and post them on our website and YouTube. I’m grateful that the videos will also be hosted on the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project website soon.
While my experiences pale in comparison to what these men and women have undergone, I believe having served in the military myself allows me to quickly build rapport and understand some of the challenges they faced. In this regard, I have also started bringing other veterans from my generation along for some of the interviews.
I’ve found that this can often add significant depth to the conversation, especially when the veteran being interviewed shared a similar job or may have belonged to the same unit as the veteran I brought along. Recently, I got to introduce one of my classmates, who served as a pilot, to a Vietnam veteran who flew the same aircraft during his service.
My time at Berkeley Law has also brought a new element of growth to the project that I did not previously anticipate. In addition to having the opportunity to interview several alumni and family members of my classmates through my pro bono and summer work, I have gained a better understanding of the barriers and legal challenges many of these veterans faced upon returning home, especially for the Vietnam generation.
One portion of the project I am continuing to develop is our Books for Vets program, which provides military history books to incarcerated veterans. As I continue in my legal education, and as Preserving the Stories continues to grow, I hope to continue shaping the project — not only to ensure these memories are not lost to time, but also to give these veterans a platform to ensure future generations of veterans do not face the same challenges in their re-entry.
At Berkeley, I have had the privilege of being one of the co-leaders of the student-led pro bono project Legal Obstacles Veterans Encounter (LOVE). Through LOVE and our host organization Swords to Plowshares, where I interned last summer, I have worked alongside my fellow students to provide legal services to veterans in need.
I’ve also been fortunate to become involved with the Veterans Justice Commission, where we have explored veteran involvement in the criminal justice system and worked to develop evidence-based policy changes. In addition, I’ve begun developing a partnership between the veterans group at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and the student veterans groups at Berkeley Law and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
I hope to continue working with justice-involved veterans after graduation.