Documenting your service in Turkey is important in the telling of the complete story of
the U.S. Military in Turkey. Our troops were primarily in Turkey during the Cold War so
if you were there, too, your true story, becomes part of our historic archives.

Your story, and your take on being stationed in Turkey is unique to you, and we'd like to
share it. Only you can tell it in your way, and many thousands are eager to read your tales
of duty in a warmhearted country that has changed thousands of our military peoples' lives.


©2014 by Knoxville-Sergeant


Contact Us

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR STORY

You might think your story of your time stationed in Turkey is not important. But let us (and our thousands upon thousands of readers) tell you, officially, that your story is vitally important. The chances are, if you were stationed in Turkey during the 1940s through 1980s, you played a part in ending the cold war, and we are where you can tell your story. All you need to do is read through some of our existing stories and you'll catch on to the fact that each person's story is different. each a different conclusion. Each person did different things in their jobs, in their off-duty hours, and played a part in a historical event.

Turkish children learn about the "Cold War" in elementary schools, high schools and colleges. American schools and Universities assign our site for everything from political science classes, to language, history, and many other majors.

And we make it easy to submit your story. You can get our email address by clicking "Contact Us" above. And there are several ways in which you can submit your story, but in all cases we prefer that your written story be in a text data form so you don't type it, and then we must type it all over again. We'd rather you use one of the following methods so we can copy and paste it into the HTML code we custom-write for each web page.

These work best:

AS TEXT OR WORD PROCESSING FILES

1. As formatted text files (Microsoft Word .doc or docx format), or
2. As text files: Windows Notepad or WordPad .txt (text) file, or
3. An Adobe PDF file - as long as it is a more recent version that can be easily converted to text.
4. Any word processing software which can save as .txt or .doc files is acceptable so we can "cut and paste" it into your story page, and which is easily attached to an email.

PHOTOS

Photos are very important to illustrating the flavors of your story, they may be submitted in several ways:

1. You can send us your original pictures, and we will scan them, and return them the same week as received, and by the same means you sent them to us, or better,
2. You can scan them yourself with the following requirements:

    a.) Dots-per-inch in scanning photos are a newspaper issue, not the web. Consequently you can use any setting higher than 72 dots per inch and the photos will look just fine. Normally with larger photos we will make a small version "thumbnail" for putting on your page, and for the convenience of people using slow connections. These thumbnails are linked to larger versions for those wishing a "closeup" or better view of your picture. Usually we'll use a tagline saying, "Click Photos to enlarge" so most of our veteran viewers decide whether a larger download time will suit their data speed.
    b.) Because download times are always an issue on the web, photos need not be larger than 640 pixels wide. And if you don't know how to resize photos, send us what you have and we'll re-size them to fit our page needs. What cannot be done is enlarging from an already-scanned picture which is too small. The blurry result will not be usable so always opt for sending us larger pictures which are easy for us to reduce in size and pictures magically become sharper when reduced as well. So if you're scanning pictures, scan them large and send them to us a .jpg (jpegs) files and we can reduce to fit your page and your story.



3. If your pictures illustrate your story's context, please let us know somehow just where each picture best fits in to your story. You can use a different colored type for this, or merely some consistant key such as ((((Picture #3 Here)))) which would call our editorss attention to it.

4. If the pictures you are submitting are not related directly to situations occurring in your story, let us know that as well, as we can create sidebars and other methods of including them.

5. And Yes, if you have them, we'd enjoy having "back then" and "now" photos of YOU as well. You're the star of your story so don't be shy in telling why you ended up in Turkey, what you learned while doing your duty there, things you did on your "off time" and as much as you are comfortable sharing about the job you did there, people you met, and other details: foods you liked, sports, travel, and other aspects of the time you spent in Turkey.

SENDING US YOUR STORY

Please contact us first to let us know you'd like to share your story. This allows us to find out a little about you, your time in Turkey, and lets us send you our proper email and physical address. Our email address is in the link at the top of this page. Click on it, and it should open a ready-to-type email in your computer. There is also an online form for this purpose below.

If, after you've submitted your story, you have a "memory blast" and something floats to the top of your mind from the "olden days" in Turkey, submit it. It's your story, and you can make changes, submit additions, as the memories return. So don't think your story has to be a complete, finished product. Write what you remember now, and as new memories occur, send them off to us and tell us where to put them in your story.

We thank you for considering offering your story. Over 100 current and former American Military contributors to our site have shared their stories thus far. We hope yours will be our next feature!

AND TWO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS: Others reading your story may wish to write you, so please include your current E-Mail address and remember to inform us if it changes. All email addresses shown on your web pages are encrypted to thwart spammers.

AND FINALLY...: Merhaba-USMilitary.com keeps its lawyers calm by using a big grey paragraph like this to express our assumption that you have permission to use photos submitted with your story. If you do not, it is easily obtained by contacting the publisher or webmaster of the site or publication where they first appeared. We will be happy to offer photo credits to the proper people if you so request. We also, of course, reserve the right to edit stories when necessary, in order to clarify, to assist the reader (as with translations, descriptors, or elements of the Turkish language as used, or to shorten or lengthen portions of stories in order to fit the our site's requirements and established digital format.

Since the great majority of us were stationed in Turkey during the Cold War, our experiences tended to be similar, but do what you can to make your story different and more interesting by including what you did when you weren't working, or special people you met, places you visited and why you still find yourself daydreaming about those "good ol' days." Those nagging recollections often bring out the best stories!

If you don't consider yourself a writer, you may surprise yourself as you sit down to your computer and begin typing. Memories will return, stories will take on a new life, and the whole process becomes easier as you type what you're thinking. Most of our contributions tend to be in chronological order, though that certainly is not a requirment. Some visited stories are random, separate essays with their own beginnings, endings, and may or may not be related to other essays within the story. Choose your own method. It is, after all, your story.

Have at it!

George W. Durman
Manager


WE WANT YOUR STORY!

The Form below sends your contact info for submissions or comment,via E-Mail.  Comments on individual stories on our website should be sent using the email contact information at the top or bottom of the contributors' story pages.  You can access the Merhaba-USMilitary main page HERE.

-------------------------------------------

  Your Name:
  

  Years stationed in Turkey:
  (i.e. 1972-75)
  

  Where were you stationed?
  

  How will you be submitting materials?
   Submit via E-Mail & Photo Attachments
   Submit via Postal Mail
   Story Submit via E-Mail, Pictures via Postal Mail
  Note: Any photos submitted via US Postal
            Service for us to scan, will be returned
            to you as quickly as possible.


  Comments:

  ONCE to Send:


  
 


Contact Us About Adding Your Story to Merhaba-USMilitary.com