Vietnam War veteran and former Pittsburgh Steeler football player Rocky Bleier will speak this Friday at 7:00pm as part of our 2012 Guest Lecture Series. The lecture will be in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech School of Law.  Admission is free and open to the public.

The mission of the Vietnam Center and Archive Guest Lecture Series is to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of students, faculty, and the community at large by bringing distinguished individuals to campus for presentations on specific aspects of the Vietnam War, its lasting impact on American politics, society and culture, and on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia.

This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2012 VNCA Guest Lecture Series or about Rocky Bleier see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present Rocky Bleier on Friday, November 9th at 7:00pm in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech University School of Law.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

A star football player at Notre Dame, Bleier was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1968. He also received a US Army draft notice that year. Leaving the NFL, Bleier served in Vietnam with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. Wounded when his platoon was ambushed, doctors told Bleier he would never play football again. With the support of Steelers owner Art Rooney, his coach and teammates, Bleier trained for two years and eventually became a star running back for the Steelers during their four Super Bowl wins in the 1970s.

The mission of the Vietnam Center and Archive Guest Lecture Series is to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of students, faculty, and the community at large by bringing distinguished individuals to campus for presentations on specific aspects of the Vietnam War, its lasting impact on American politics, society and culture, and on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia.

This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2012 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS, or contact Mary Saffell at 806-742-9010 or mary.saffell@ttu.edu.

USAF Vietnam War pilot Dick Rutan will speak this Thursday at 7:00pm as part of our 2012 Guest Lecture Series. The lecture will be in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech School of Law.  Admission is free and open to the public.

The mission of the Vietnam Center and Archive Guest Lecture Series is to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of students, faculty, and the community at large by bringing distinguished individuals to campus for presentations on specific aspects of the Vietnam War, its lasting impact on American politics, society and culture, and on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia.

This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2012 VNCA Guest Lecture Series or about Dick Rutan see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS.

The third Friday in September is National POW/MIA Recognition Day.  There are 83,414 Americans listed as MIA since WWII, including 1,655 from the Vietnam War.  Please take a moment today to remember those who are still missing from the Vietnam War and all other wars.

To learn more about efforts to account for and recover all of our missing personnel, visit the Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office (DPMO).

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present Dick Rutan on Thursday, September 27th at 7:00pm in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech University School of Law.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dick Rutan served in the Air Force in Vietnam, flying over 325 combat missions. Following his time in the military, Rutan continued his aviation career, earning many honors, breaking many world records, and being inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1986 he was the first person to fly nonstop around the globe without refueling. He received the Presidential Citizen’s Medal of Honor, and his plane “Voyager” now hangs in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

The mission of the Vietnam Center and Archive Guest Lecture Series is to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of students, faculty, and the community at large by bringing distinguished individuals to campus for presentations on specific aspects of the Vietnam War, its lasting impact on American politics, society and culture, and on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia.

This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2012 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS, or contact Mary Saffell at 806-742-9010 or mary.saffell@ttu.edu.

The digitization of the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) Application Files of the FVPPA/VAHF collection is proceeding at a great pace and we are well ahead of schedule.  This three year project, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), is projected to make available online 250,000 pages of materials documenting the immigration experience of Vietnamese to the United States following the end of the war in Vietnam.  After seven months we have digitized just under 5000 files, totaling over 100,000 pages of material.  All of these files are accessible through the Virtual Vietnam Archive, and you can keep up with the project on our project page.

Thanks to everybody who came out to the Texas Tech Museum yesterday to see the Archive’s Huey and Cobra helicopters and all of the great WWII exhibits the museum has opened.

The Center and Archive also had two new exhibits open this weekend: “Vietnam: The Helicopter War”, on display until September 2nd at the Silent Wings Museum, and “The US Soldier’s Experience During the Vietnam War” at the Science Spectrum until September 2nd.

For those of you who can’t make it to see “Vietnam: The Helicopter War” at the Silent Wings, you can see it online here: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/helicopter/

Don’t forget our our reception on Monday, July 23rd at 6:00pm at the Science Spectrum celebrating the opening of our exhibits, and honoring all of our local Vietnam veterans.

Happy Independence Day from the Vietnam Center and Archive, and thank you to all of those who have worked to preserve our freedom!

Undated image, Dan Peckham Collection

The Museum of Texas Tech University Association has organized a summer-long series of collaborative exhibitions celebrating those who have protected our freedom titled “Celebrating our Heroes.” The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to participate in this series with a number of events:

July 15th – “Helicopter Display at the Museum of Texas Tech University:” The Vietnam Center and Archive’s AH-1G Cobra Attack Helicopter and UH-1 Huey Utility Helicopter will be on display at the TTU Museum during the Museum’s family picnic for Veterans and Families celebrating the opening of the “‘Memories of WWII’ Photographs from the Archives of the Associated Press” exhibit.  Reservations are required – 806-742-2443.

July 15th-September 2nd – “The Helicopter from WWII to the Vietnam War” at the Silent Wings Museum.  The helicopter was first utilized by the US military during WWII at Burma in 1945 when the vaunted American glider forces were unable to reach downed American bombers.  By the beginning of the Vietnam War the uses for helicopters were being greatly expanded, and the UH-1 Huey became one of the most recognized icons of the war in Vietnam.  This exhibit will examine the history and uses of the helicopter over the course of the war, and will feature both a physical exhibit on display at the Silent Wings Museum as well as an online exhibit on our website.  Visitors to the physical exhibit will have the option to use smart phones or tablets to access enhanced content such as historical film footage, audio records, oral histories, and documents.

July 15th-September 2nd – “Experiences: US Soldiers in the Vietnam War” at the Science Spectrum.  This exhibit will examine a day-in-the-life of US soldiers and support personnel in Vietnam and will feature many historical images and artifacts from the collections of the Vietnam Center and Archive.

July 23rd – “Celebrating our Heroes at the Vietnam Center and Archive” reception at 6:00pm at the Science Spectrum.  More information about this reception will be posted soon.

We hope you will be able to join us and the other participating institutions for these events over the course of the summer.  For more information on all of the Celebrating our Heroes events visit www.celebratingourheroes.com.

On this Memorial Day, the Vietnam Center and Archive remembers all of the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us and our freedom.  Thank you.