You raised your hand when most people didn’t. Whether you are still serving or you hung it up years ago, you gave years of your life on the country’s time, in places most of us will never see, next to people you would have died for. Whatever you carried home from that, and whatever it cost you, it is not forgotten here. Thank you.
chapter3five was built by an Army veteran. Eight years in, out in 2019, and then the part nobody drills you for. Friends who never found the one person to talk to. A phone that didn’t ring at 2 a.m. He built this so no veteran’s story ends with the people who loved him wishing they had asked.
Your life is a legacy worth saving
Your service is already history. Your life is the part your family will want: the house you grew up in, who actually raised you, the things you say that nobody else says, what you’d tell a scared kid, the story you want the grandchildren telling at the table. A folded flag says what you did. Your own words say who you were. Those words deserve to be saved, and only you can record them.
What it is
Forty-five questions about your own life, asked one at a time, at your own pace, on your own phone. You type your answers, and every one is kept exactly as you wrote it. Nothing is invented and nothing is cleaned up. It stays yours.
When you’re done, you get a private code. Hand it to the people you choose — a wife, a son, a daughter, a battle buddy — and your words are theirs to keep. After you’re gone, they can read them and talk with them at any hour, and hear you answer in your own words. Text only. We will never make a voice that sounds like you, and we will never put words in your mouth you didn’t record.
Recording your own life is free for you, and the code is free for your family. If you would rather sit with a family member and have them type while you talk, that works too.
To the families
If you love a veteran, ask now. Not when he is sick, not at the end. On an ordinary Tuesday, while the stories still come easily and he can still laugh at the parts he shouldn’t tell you. The questions are here. The first one is about the house he grew up in.
What it is not
chapter3five is not therapy, not the VA, and not a crisis line. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. If you are in a bad spot right now, please reach a real person first:
Veterans Crisis Line: call 988 and press 1, or text 838255. Free, any hour, and you do not have to be enrolled in VA care to use it.
If you are in danger, call 911.
Why the questions work
The VA has known for years that asking a veteran about his life is care in itself. Their writers have sat with more than ten thousand veterans to do exactly that. Most veterans never get the writer. chapter3five is the same interview, done on your own phone, when you want, and it stays yours.
You don’t have to be old, sick, or sure of anything to start. You have already done the hard part of your life. This part is just telling it. The first question is about the house you grew up in. Start there.