Above: Lenny Tvedten holds his new book which shares the stories of Martin County veterans. The book is available now.

FAIRMONT– Lenny Tvedten recently received an early Christmas gift — shipments of his new book which highlights Martin County veterans. Tvedten started the project earlier this year.

As the Martin County Historical Society director, Tvedten is no stranger to important bits of history from the area. He explained how he began to collect the stories of local veterans.

“In 2019, for the helicopter dedication, I was asked to interview some veterans who had experience with helicopters, either pilots, gunners or mechanics. So I interviewed about 15 and submitted their stories to the county newspapers,” Tvedten said.

Then Tvedten began thinking he would like to expand on that and include more Martin County Veterans and put their stories into book form.

Tvedten isn’t new to the book-writing world. His first book, Tales of Martin County, came out in 2018. There are noticeable differences between the two, both in topic and method of creation.

“That was a compilation of the historical articles I’ve been submitting to the newspapers. That was more of a history of the county,” Tvedten said of his first book.

For his latest book, Tvedten took the stories of local veterans and put them on pages. He started the process in early 2021.

“I put some information in the county newspapers asking anyone who would like to be in the book to contact me. Then I sent a questionnaire out to those who contacted me,” Tvedten explained.

Once the questionnaire was returned to him, Tvedten began putting the information in story form. Then he sent it back to each veteran to proof.

Once Tvedten got them back again, he made a final copy and sent the book off to be printed.

“I tried to be as thorough and accurate as possible which is why I sent it back a couple times to make sure it was done accurately,” Tvedten said.

The book was delayed several times due to paper supply issues. While they were initially shooting for a Black Friday debut, the books were delivered last week.

As for what’s in book, Tvedten had collected a big binder filled with pages of information and pictures on 72 veterans. He tried to limit each veteran’s story to two pages. This resulted in a 164-page book.

The book was limited to living veterans.

“Not that the veterans who aren’t living aren’t important, I just wanted to limit it to the population of living veterans,” Tvedten explained.

While all of their stories started in Martin County, Tvedten said some of the veterans included now live in Texas, Alaska and California.

One of them, Brenda McEwing from Sherburn, flew from Atlanta, GA to meet with Tvedten face-to-face.

“That was an interesting and unique situation,” Tvedten said.

The book includes veterans from WWII–the oldest being Leo Mau at 103 — up to those currently in the military and not yet discharged.

The book even includes Tvedten’s own story. He had been teaching in Fairmont when he was drafted. He was in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1968 to 1972.

Tvedten shared something that happened that he hadn’t anticipated.

“There were about four included in here that were former students of mine. That was quite interesting and a lot of fun,” Tvedten said.

The book not only covers a wide span of time, but a variety of experiences.

“There’s everything from wartime to desk jobs. One individual was a military dog handler, a kennel master who trained dogs in Iraq and assisted in starting the Iraqi police canine program,” Tvedten said.

Tvedten explained he didn’t know what to expect when he put out a request for veterans to contact him.

“I found that it was extremely interesting, more so than I thought I would when I started, but also inspiring to hear all of the different stories,” he said.

Copies of the book are available for $20 at the Martin County Historical Society, Photo Press, Good News Bookstore and Fleet and Farm.

Lastly Tvedten said he has teamed up with Jeff Rouse and that they’ll be conducting round-table interviews with veterans who are in the book starting at the end of January. The interviews will be on Destination Small Town, Martin County on TV Youtube channel, as well as on the Martin County Historical Society website.