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.

In honor of Memorial Day, the Vietnam Center and Archive will be closed today.

The Vietnam Center and Archive’s 5th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) Film Festival concludes this week with three films.

On Tuesday, April 30th, in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, “The Beautiful Country,” will be shown.  Set in 1990 Vietnam, Binh, born to a Vietnamese mother and a US soldier father, endures extreme prejudice and great hardship due to his heritage. The film stars Damien Nguyen, Nick Nolte, Bai Ling, Chau Thi Kim Xuan, Tim Roth, Anh Thu, Temuera Morrison, and John Hussey.

On May 1st, also at 6:00pm in the Formby Room, the third film of the APAHM film festival, “Hideko the Bus Conductress,” will be presented. A 1941 Japanese film based on a short story by Masuji Ibuse, the film is comedic and jovial, but bravely critiques the military and big business synergism of pre World War II Japan.

The film festival concludes on May 3rd at 6:00pm, again in the Formby Room, with a presentation of “A Story of Floating Weeds,” a 1934 Japanese film about clandestine lovers being torn apart by deceit, jealousy, and family dynamics and secrets.

All film showings are free and open to the public.  For more information about the films and the APAHM Film Festival, visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu/2013filmfestival.

Filmmaker and activist Socheata Poeuv will be speaking this Thursday about her film, New Year Baby, and her work to preserve the histories of the survivors of the Cambodian genocide.  The film will be shown at 6:00pm in the Helen DeVitt Jones Auditorium of the Museum of Texas Tech.  The lecture and Q&A session will follow at 7:30.  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.  This event is co-sponsored by the Museum of Texas Tech.  For more information on the 2013 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present four films as part of our 5th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) Film Festival from April 25th-May 3rd.  The first film, “New Year Baby,” will be shown at 6:00pm on April 25th at the Helen DeVitt Jones Auditorium of the Museum of Texas Tech University.  A lecture and Q&A session with the filmmaker, Socheata Poeuv, will follow the film at 7:30 as part of the Vietnam Center and Archive’s Guest Lecture Series (www.vietnam.ttu.edu/gls), and is cosponsored by the Museum of Texas Tech University.

The second film, “The Beautiful Country,” will be shown on April 30th at 6:00pm in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library.  On May 1st, also at 6:00pm in the Formby Room, the third film, “Hideko the Bus Conductress,” will be presented.  The film festival concludes on May 3rd at 6:00pm, again in the Formby Room, with a presentation of “A Story of Floating Weeds.”

All film showings are free and open to the public.  For more information about the films and the APAHM Film Festival, visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu/2013filmfestival.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present Socheata Poeuv and her film, New Year Baby, on Thursday, April 25th in the Helen DeVitt Jones Auditorium of the Museum of Texas Tech.  This event is free and open to the public.  The film will be shown at 6:00pm, followed by a presentation by the Socheata and a Q&A session at 7:30pm.

An award winning filmmaker, scholar, and social activist, Socheata Poeuv is the founder and CEO of Khmer Legacies, an organization whose mission is to create a video archive of testimonies from survivors of the Cambodian genocide. Ms. Poeuv was born in a Thai refugee camp after her parents fled Cambodia in the midst of the Pol Pot regime. They emigrated to the U.S. when she was two years old. Her 2006 film, New Year Baby, documents her return to Cambodia to learn what happened to her family during the terror of the Khmer Rouge. The film has won multiple awards, including Amnesty International’s “Movies That Matter” Human Rights Cinema Award and the Crystal Heart Award for expressing “hope and respect for the positive values of life.” The film was broadcast nationally as part of PBS’s Independent Lens series.

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.  This event is co-sponsored by the Museum of Texas Tech.  For more information on the 2013 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS, or contact Mary Saffell at 806-742-9010 or mary.saffell@ttu.edu.

Author and Vietnam Veteran Karl Marlantes will be speaking this Thursday at 7:00pm 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 program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. 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.

Texas Tech University is in the process of transitioning to a new communications system.  Over the next few days the Vietnam Center and Archive will be converting to the new system.  Today (Friday), our departmental email addresses are being transitioned.  During this transition, the following addresses are unavailable:

vietnamarchive@ttu.edu
vietnam.center@ttu.edu
vawebmaster@ttu.edu
vaoralhistory@ttu.edu
vahc.vietnam@ttu.edu
vietnamcenterconference@ttu.edu

Messages sent to these addresses may result in an Undeliverable response.  Messages that have been sent during the transitiion will not be delivered, so you will need to resend them to our new address vnca@ttu.edu, or call us at 806-742-9010.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present author and Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes on Thursday, March 28th at 7:00pm in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech University School of Law.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Karl Marlantes is the bestselling author of Matterhorn: a Novel of the Vietnam War and What it is Like to Go to War. The latter title was named a top book of 2011 by Amazon.com. The Washington Post called it “a well-crafted and forcefully argued work that contains fresh and important insights into what it’s like to be in a war and what it does to the human psyche.” A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals.

Marlantes will be available to sign books following the lecture, and books will be available for purchase before and after the lecture.

This is the second lecture in the Vietnam Center and Archive 2013 Guest Lecture Series.  All lectures are 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 program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2013 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS, or contact Mary Saffell at 806-742-9010 ormary.saffell@ttu.edu.

It is with deep sadness that we inform you of the death of a great friend, Dr. John Buesseler, who passed away on Thursday, March 7, 2013. For more than four decades, Dr. Buesseler has been an important member of our community in Lubbock, at Texas Tech University, and at TTU Health Sciences Center.  Dr. Buesseler is perhaps best known as the founding dean of the TTUHSC School of Medicine. In addition to his remarkable work in that position, he also served many patients as a practicing ophthalmologist and was very active in historical preservation projects in West Texas, to include founding the Texas Aviation Heritage Foundation, Incorporated (TAHFI) and bringing the Silent Wings Museum to Lubbock. Perhaps less widely known was his essential role in the founding and success of the Vietnam Center and Archive at Texas Tech University. Dr. Buesseler worked very closely with Dr. Jim Reckner, founding director of the Vietnam Center and Archive, along with many other supporters, and in 1989 they established what has become the most comprehensive archive of Vietnam War materials outside the U.S. National Archives.  As a veteran who served during World War II and the Vietnam War, both of these projects remained very near and dear to him until the end of his life.

Born in 1920, Dr. Buesseler is a member of that amazing generation of young Americans whose coming of age corresponded with the Great Depression, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the many terrible struggles that ensued in Europe and Asia during WWII. Following his service in Europe, Dr. Buesseler returned home, got married to his wonderful wife, Cathy, and they pursued a life together in medicine and teaching. In early 1970, as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves attached to the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam, he organized and conducted a study of the US military medical evacuation system (also called MEDEVAC or DUSTOFF), a program that served as the foundation for the current helicopter medical evacuation system in place throughout the United States today.

Arriving in Lubbock in late 1970 to assume the founding deanship at TTUHSC, Dr. Buesseler then dedicated his life to the health and well-being of his patients, the education of TTUHSC students, and to the improvement of our community. He remained very active in both TAHFI and the Vietnam Center and Archive, serving on both boards and continuing to provide extensive support, guidance, and encouragement. The legacy of these two projects alone will remain as a testament to his vision, leadership, generosity, and devotion to Lubbock, TTU, and TTUHSC. They will also stand as living monuments to the memory of our nation’s military heroes, of which he was one.

In the words of our founding director, Dr. Jim Reckner, “Time takes its inevitable toll.  The shadows daily lengthen as the shining lights of John’s generation grow dimmer and ultimately are extinguished.  By their sacrifice, they established the basis for American security and prosperity for decades.  And now they go to eternal rest.”

At the request of the family, there will be no public memorial services held. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Cathy Buesseler and their family. John gave so much of himself to us and we will be forever grateful for his friendship and for all he did for our community and nation. May he rest in peace.

The Vietnam Center and Archive will be closed today, February 25th, due to snow. #LubbockBlizzard