TOLEDO – At the yard and estate sales Glenn Harris frequently visits, he always asks one question: 'Do you have any military papers around, you know the stuff your Uncle Charlie left and you never knew what to do with it.?'

It leads to some great finds, but one woman found it suspicious at best.

"She said, 'How do you know my Uncle Charlie?'"

As it turned out, she did have a stack of military papers from the man, though it took some talking on Harris' part to persuade her the name was pure coincidence. Today, Uncle Charlie's paperwork is preserved in one of the hundreds of binders Harris has worked decades to fill with pre-1950 military records and other memorabilia of WWI and WWII veterans.

Now Harris, 78, is hoping one day a museum will step up to take his collection and preserve it. He doesn't doubt someone will want the collectibles, like the Swastika cut from a German airplane in 1945 or the license plates made from soy paste or the blackout light bulb. But Harris is more concerned about those many, many pieces of paper.

"In 50 years, we'll be able to find dog tags and belt buckles and those sorts of things, but how about a transfer form, or discharge papers," Harris said. "It's estimated 1,000 WWII veterans die every day. They gave up a big chunk of their life to be over there. I think they deserve recognition for what they did."

Harris did not start out collecting paper. Rather, in 1988 he embarked on a mission to rebuild a WC-64 Knockdown Ambulance, better known as the KD Ambulance and so named because the boxes and windshields could be flattened and two shipped one on top of the other.

At the time, there were believed to be fewer than 10 in existence, and Harris was intent on restoring his as authentically as possible. He even put together a medic's uniform to wear when he drove it. After three and a half years of work, Harris said he took first place in a National Military Vehicle Collector's Convention in Phoenix. But by then he'd already decided there were other collectibles that mattered more.

"It just came to me that maybe the important stuff was not the hardware, but the important thing was the guy's service," Harris said. "A lot of people collect the hardware and the weapons and flags, but that doesn't really relate to the people who brought that stuff home. It sort of occurred to me I was thinking the wrong way. I've never found any other organization that collects the personal papers. I talked to museums and they said we can't handle that stuff so we throw it out."

He's also more than once had the disheartening experience at garage sales of offering cash for the paperwork only to be told it was worth way more than he was offering. Then, on returning the final day of the sale to see if the papers were still available, discovered no one had bought the papers so they were trashed.

But there is plenty of paperwork he has preserved. One veteran's binder begins with his grade school drawings, on to his draft notice, his induction papers, his training as a bombardier on a B-17 and the news of the crash that claimed his life, ending with his obituary.

His most recent acquisition is a WWII scrapbook of a cook and sergeant in the Women's Army Corps, a particularly significant find since memorabilia from the WAC is hard to find, Harris said.

His binders are also filled with "sweetheart gifts," the pillow covers, handkerchiefs, jewelry and other mementos sent home to wives and moms. Likewise there are binders for uniform patches, "Ruptured Ducks" – the nickname given the lapel pin or patch awarded for honorable discharges in WWII, and victory mail – better known as V-mail – in which letters home from overseas were copied onto film, shipped, then again printed on paper once they reached their destination.

While Harris focuses on the paperwork, the quest to find it naturally leads him to so much more. There's "trench art" – the pieces made by soldiers from ammunition, stereo photos – the early 3D art also known as stereographs and various posters, front pages, flags and even a Nazi war game.

His quest also turned up mementoes of the "Hello Girls," American women fluent in French who were flown to France to operate the telephone switchboards. A friend recently led him to a WWI gas mask with the original paperwork. And once at an Arizona yard sale, when Harris asked a woman his usual question about military items, she replied, "I have something." And gestured for Harris to follow her.

"Just sitting there in the middle of the backyard was a 50-gallon drum with lid clamped tight so it was sealed and waterproof," Harris recalled. "Inside was a WWII high-altitude, wool-lined, leather flight suit with the helmet, gloves and a four hardcover volume set of manuals for the B-24 bomber."

There is at least one part of his collection that is so disturbing Harris won't look at it – that would be the five volumes of original transcripts from the Nuremberg Trials.

"I found them at a yard sale in Mesa, Arizona," Harris said. "The lady said that her late husband was a guard at the trials and brought them home... I started reading ... 20 years later I still have nightmares. I don't want anyone to read them."

There's also one thing Harris has no interest in collecting – weapons. "I don't like weapons," he said.

He's also not intent on keeping it all for himself. He's sat down with many veterans who can't tell their stories to their families, but can tell a stranger. Harris typed up their stories in narratives so they can be preserved as part of the family's history. Likewise, he'll help others preserve what already exists.

"Any veteran or veteran's family that wants their paperwork put in a binder, I'll do the job and give it back to them," Harris said. "It is theirs. It is not my stuff. The veterans earned it and they deserve to keep it."

-- Lori Tobias