Racing Against Time: The 28-Year-Old on a Mission to Interview Every Living WWII Combat Vet

While most young adults fresh out of high school are mapping out college degrees or career paths, Rishi Sharma chose a dramatically different, highly grueling mission: capturing the memories of the “Greatest Generation” before they are lost to history forever.

Over the last decade, the 28-year-old Southern Californian has crisscrossed all 50 U.S. states, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and France. His goal is as simple as it is urgent: to meet and video-interview every single surviving World War II combat veteran from the Allied nations.

To date, Rishi has successfully recorded more than 3,000 in-depth interviews, running his entire operation on a shoestring budget fueled purely by public donations.

A Passion Rooted in Gratitude

Interestingly, Rishi’s deep obsession with World War II history didn’t inherit its way down through a family military tradition. His parents immigrated to the United States from India, and he has no personal background in the armed forces.

Instead, his drive stems from a profound sense of civic gratitude. Having immersed himself in wartime history during his sophomore year of high school, Rishi realized that the modern freedoms, safety, and opportunities his family enjoyed in America were paid for by the teenagers who shipped out to Europe and the Pacific in the 1940s.

Upon graduating high school in 2016, he put his own life entirely on hold to launch his 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Remember WWII.

The Reality of the Road: True Sacrifice

Rishi doesn’t just run a historical archive; his daily life over the past ten years has mirrored the very definition of grit and single-minded focus:

• Zero Salary: Rishi refuses to take any form of personal income or salary from the donations his non-profit receives. Every single cent raised goes directly toward gas, vehicle maintenance, camera gear, and basic travel costs.
• Living on the Edge: To maximize his budget, Rishi routinely skips hotel rooms, opting instead to sleep in his van or rely on the hospitality of strangers who open their homes to him along his route. For years, he has sustained himself on just one meal a day to keep expenses at an absolute minimum.
• A Gift to Families: Each interview lasts for several hours, capturing granular, unvarnished, first-hand accounts of iconic battles like Iwo Jima, the Battle of the Bulge, and D-Day. Once wrapped, Rishi gives full, unedited digital copies of the footage to the veterans’ families completely free of charge, providing an invaluable, permanent family heirloom.

The Urgent Math

The project has transitioned from an ambitious passion piece into an absolute sprint against the clock.

When Rishi first stepped out onto the road a decade ago, an estimated 700,000 World War II veterans were still alive across the United States. Today, fewer than 30,000 remain, with the vast majority of survivors well past their 100th birthdays.

For Rishi, the fast-approaching day when the last World War II veteran passes away represents a massive cultural loss that goes far deeper than the text inside a history textbook.

“For so long they have been the moral compass of our society,” Rishi noted in a recent profile. “Just the advice that they impart silently steers the ship of this country.”

Through his active YouTube channel (Remember WWII with Rishi Sharma), he continues to upload these raw, candid testimonies daily—reminding a modern world exactly what real sacrifice, humility, and moral clarity look like.