For soldiers and their families
MemoriesBox records a soldier's or veteran's life story in their own voice, across many short sessions. VIP Setup, normally $299, is free for families of serving and fallen soldiers, and for serving soldiers recording themselves, in every language we work in.
Facts on this page verified
The situation, and the offer
Somebody in your family served, or is serving now, and the account you have of it is thin. VIP Setup, which is $299 for everyone else, is free for families of serving and fallen soldiers.
That is not a promotion and there is no end date on it. Write to hello@memoriesbox.org from any country, in English, Russian, Ukrainian or Spanish, and say who served. Someone will arrange it.
The thinness of the account is normal. People who have served tend to talk about the food, the cold, the boredom, and one funny story involving a sergeant. Around that there is a shape you can feel but cannot ask about directly, and the family has usually learned not to try. Then a grandchild asks a direct question at a table, and the answer is longer than anything the rest of you ever got.
47% of Americans regret not recording or documenting a conversation with someone who has since died, and 59% have never done it at all (YouGov, June 2022, n=6,090). That survey asked about recording or documenting, so it is not specific to voice. It is still the pattern here: the intention is common, and something about asking a person about a war stops most families from acting on it.
What the free setup is, exactly
| Normally | For families of serving and fallen soldiers | |
|---|---|---|
| VIP Setup | $299 one-time | Free |
| What it includes | We create the account, set up the voice, and guide the first recording by phone or video call. By the end, the family already has a key | The same |
| How soon | A call within a week of asking, at a time that suits the storyteller | The same |
| Who it is for | Anyone | Families of serving and fallen soldiers, and serving soldiers recording themselves before or during deployment |
| What you are asked to show | — | Nothing. Tell us who served, in a sentence. We take your word for it |
| Subscription | $139/yr, first 14 days free | $139/yr, first 14 days free — the subscription itself is not discounted, and this table should not be read as if it were |
| Language | The interview in EN, RU, UA or ES; the site in those and German | The same |
| How to ask | — | Email hello@memoriesbox.org and say who served |
This is not a Ukrainian offer
It was written in Ukrainian first and for a while it only appeared on the Ukrainian pages. That was a mistake of publishing, not of policy.
The offer applies to families of serving and fallen soldiers wherever they are, and it is visible in every language the site runs in, on this page, with the same wording and the same email address. A family looking for it in Spanish should not have to find a Ukrainian page and work out what it says.
What people will talk about, and what they will not
| They will usually talk about | They will usually not talk about | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Training, food, weather, kit that did not work | The worst day | Do not go looking for it. If it arrives, stop asking questions and let it be said |
| The people in their unit, by name | What happened to some of those people | Ask what a person was like, not how they died |
| Getting there and coming home | The first months back | "What was it like being in a supermarket again" gets further than "was it hard" |
| What they thought at the time | What they think now | Ask the first. The second sometimes follows |
| Small tasks and how they were done | Anything framed as heroism | Specifics are the whole method. Ask what they carried, and what it weighed |
The sequencing, and what to do when a question lands badly, is on questions about war and service.
Two rules that matter more here than anywhere else on this site. Do not press, ever. And do not perform gratitude at someone mid-conversation, because it ends the conversation.
What to do first
- Record something ordinary, before anything about service. Where they grew up, what their mother was like, what they wanted to be at fourteen. A person who has been asked about a war their whole life is often relieved to be asked about something else. The first twenty minutes.
- Photograph the documents. Discharge papers, unit photographs, letters, medals with the names on the back. These usually exist in one place only. Going through old photographs together.
- If they are deploying, record before rather than after. A short session in their own voice is a recording that exists and consents to itself. Messages sent home later are not the same thing, for reasons set out below.
- Ask what they want kept private. Explicitly, on the recording. Knowing afterwards which parts were for the family only is impossible unless somebody asks now.
If they have already died
We are not able to build a voice for you, and we would rather say that on this page than have you find out at the end of a form.
MemoriesBox only builds a voice from recordings a person made themselves, knowingly, while alive and taking part. Voice messages sent home from a deployment were made by them but not for this, and they did not agree to it. We do not treat a message to a wife as consent to build something she will then have to decide whether to talk to. That boundary is the whole basis of the product, and it is set out at we only record people who agreed to be recorded.
What we can do is help you keep what exists. What to do with the recordings afterwards covers formats, backups and where to put things, and it does not require an account. If it would help to have a person go through it with you, write to hello@memoriesbox.org.
How MemoriesBox fits
Short guided sessions, in the language they served in, recorded over months rather than in one sitting. The audio is kept as spoken and not rewritten into prose, which matters when the way someone says a thing is most of the information. A voice model can be built after about 30 minutes of recordings, and it answers from what was actually said. It does not produce opinions the person never expressed, and every conversation is labelled as AI.
Everything is hosted in the European Union and can be exported at any time. Where your recordings actually live names the country and the sub-processors, which is a fair question to ask of anyone holding this material.
Questions people ask
Is VIP Setup really free for families of serving and fallen soldiers?
Yes. It is $299 for everyone else. Email hello@memoriesbox.org, say who served, and it will be arranged. It is available in English, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish, not only in Ukrainian.
My father will not talk about the war. Should I even ask?
Ask about the rest of his life and let the service be a part of it rather than the subject. Most of what families want turns out to be reachable that way. If he says no to a particular area, that is information too, and it should be respected permanently rather than tested each visit.
Can a soldier record their own story before deploying?
Yes, and it is the version we would recommend. Half an hour is enough for a voice model. The recordings belong to them, and they decide who has access and when.
Can you build an avatar from voice messages my husband sent me?
No. He did not agree to it, and consent given for a message home is not consent for this. We can help you preserve and organise the recordings you have, at no cost, by email.
What happens to the recordings if the company closes?
Exported files keep working. A running avatar does not. That distinction, and what we commit to, is on what happens to your recordings if MemoriesBox shuts down.
Related: For families split across countries · When there isn't much time · Questions about war and service · Who MemoriesBox is for
To begin without waiting for a reply, start a subscription: $139 a year, first 14 days free, cancel anytime. The free VIP Setup can be arranged afterwards.