Please join us on Sunday, September 3, 2017, at 6 PM for Vietnam War Movie Night at Alamo Drafthouse as we present the Academy Award winning documentary film, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara is the sole focus of documentary film-maker Errol Morris’ The Fog of War, a film that not only analyzes McNamara’s controversial decisions during the first half of the Vietnam War, but also his childhood upbringing, his education at Berkeley and Harvard, his involvement in World War II, and his later years as president of the World Bank. Culling footage from almost 20 hours of interviews with the Secretary, Morris details key moments from McNamara’s career, including the 1945 bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and President Kennedy’s suggestions to the Secretary that the U.S. remove itself from Vietnam. Throughout the film, the 85-year-old McNamara expounds his philosophies on international conflict, and shows regret and pride in equal measure for, respectively, his mistakes and accomplishments.

The film will start at 6 PM and will be followed by expert commentary and discussion featuring Dr. Ron Milam and Dr. Justin Hart, associate professors of history at Texas Tech University.

Reserve your tickets online at https://drafthouse.com/lubbock/show/the-fog-of-war-eleven-lessons-from-the-life-of-robert-s.-mcnamara

For a little over two years now, the staff at the Vietnam Center & Archive have been diligently working on a new and improved version of the Virtual Vietnam Archive. The new version will feature a crisper and cleaner interface, enhanced search capabilities, new record formats, and more records for our patrons to explore (almost 3 million additional pages of material to be exact). We built our new interface using an open source platform called ArchivesSpace, which not only allowed us to add a lot of new features to the Virtual Vietnam Archive but also turned it into a web-based application. There are no more license limits for the number of people allowed to use the database and no more exiting your search session to leave the Virtual Vietnam Archive.

Users of the new system will be able to browse our finding aids, and if they find something of interest, click on links within the finding aid to be taken directly to the digitized material. Given the widespread international use of the Virtual Vietnam Archive with more than 2 million searches conduced every year in over 160 countries, we realize and appreciate that we have many research patrons who have frequently used the current version and may have saved links to digital documents for your footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, and personal reference. So long as you followed our previous guidance and used the links provided within the database records, the links you saved will still function as before.

If you have any links that no longer function after our transition, please feel free to contact us directly and we will assist you as much as possible in reestablishing those links. Also, given the newness of the ArchivesSpace interface and differences between the previous and new versions of the Virtual Vietnam Archive, we will be providing online tutorials and additional guidance to help smooth the transition for everyone.

As always, we will invite your feedback and observations on how we can improve the new Virtual Vietnam Archive. We are very excited about the new Virtual Vietnam Archive and the ArchivesSpace platform, which will allow us to continue improving the database and its features moving forward. The new Virtual Vietnam Archive will be released in early June.

Please join the Vietnam Center and Archive as we celebrate… TET – The Vietnamese New Year

Thursday, February 2
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
The International Cultural Center
Hall of Nations
Texas Tech University

The Vietnam Center and Archive cordially invites you to join us as we celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, on Thursday, February 2nd, 2017. Please come sample delicious Vietnamese cuisine and learn more about the rich heritage and culture that makes Vietnam so remarkable.
In Vietnam, one of 12 animals of the zodiac represents each year and January 28, 2017, ushered in the Lunar Year of the Rooster. The Rooster plays an important role in everyday life in Vietnam and people born in the Year of the Rooster are said to be hardworking, talented, resourceful, courageous, active, amusing, and popular.
The Vietnamese people regard Tet as their most cherished holiday and it is a time to celebrate
family and friends.We hope you will be able to join us!
For more information, please visit
www.vietnam.ttu.edu or call 742-9010

 Conference Call for Papers and Panels
“1967: The Search for Peace”

April 28-29, 2017, Lubbock, Texas

The Vietnam Center and Archive and the newly-created Institute for Peace & Conflict (IPAC) at Texas Tech University are pleased to announce a conference focused on the year 1967 and the search for peace in Vietnam. We hope and expect in this conference to approach the events of 1967 in the broadest possible manner by hosting presentations not only on the antiwar and peace movements at home and abroad, but also on efforts to end the conflict through international diplomacy as well as military and diplomatic means in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Recent scholarship has focused on 1967 as a pivotal year in the Vietnam War, as the broad consensus that had supported the war in its early years started to break down and the country fractured over whether the United States could successfully achieve its stated objectives in Vietnam. In streets and on campuses across America, critics of the war demanded an immediate U.S. withdrawal—a position rejected by the Johnson administration as naïve and irresponsible. In April, Martin Luther King became the most famous opponent of the war, much to the chagrin of President Johnson. Behind closed doors, an increasing number of officials within the administration began to question official U.S. strategy and they looked for ways to change course. In May, the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) was created to hopefully “pacify” the rural areas controlled by NLF and PAVN troops, and win the “hearts and minds” of the villagers. In a speech in San Antonio in September of that year, President Johnson offered to suspend the bombing campaign in exchange for concessions from North Vietnam, prefiguring his more famous offer of a bombing pause announced in the wake of the Tet Offensive the following year. Meanwhile, a force increase to 480,000 troops, operations such as Cedar Falls, Junction City and Rolling Thunder had not defeated the will of the enemy to continue fighting. The depth of this divide behind closed doors was perhaps symbolized most profoundly by the resignation of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that fall. While this conference will reflect upon the 50^th anniversary of all of the events that took place during that critical year, we also encourage the submission of papers and panels that will address the theme of peace over the course of the war from as many perspectives as possible.

This two-day conference will be hosted at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Lubbock, Texas. Conference organizers welcome both individual presentation proposals as well as pre-organized panel proposals that include two to three presentations. Conference sessions will follow the standard 90-minute format to include 60 minutes for presentations and 30 minutes for questions and discussion. Presentations by veterans are especially encouraged as are presentations by graduate students. Graduate student travel grants will be made available to select students.

Proposal submission deadline is February 15, 2017. Please submit a 250 word abstract and separate two-page CV/resume to 1967vietnamconference@gmail.com. The program committee of Justin Hart, Dave Lewis, Steve Maxner, Laura Calkins, and Ron Milam will evaluate all paper proposals and develop a program that reflects the many remarkable aspects of 1967. If submitting a panel proposal, please include separate abstracts for each proposed presentation and CVs/resumes for each speaker.

Thank you for your interest in participating in this conference.

You are invited . . .

Part of the mission of the VNCA is to promote awareness and understanding of Vietnamese culture. If you are in the Lubbock area, please join us for our Lunar New Year party on Thursday, February 18, 4-5pm at the Texas Tech International Cultural Center (in the TTU museum “district” along Indiana at 4th St.).

Since this is the Year of the Monkey, here are images from the Virtual Vietnam Archive . . .

Visit the Vietnam Center and Archive Facebook to view more images:

Donut Dollies (aka, American Red Cross volunteers) visiting LZ San Juan Hill, February 1971.

[Don Kilgore Collection – 1630]

Robert Funseth’s career included 40 years of diplomatic service at American embassies, consulates and on diplomatic missions in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Western Hemisphere and the United Nations. He was the spokesman for the State Department in the 1970s and during his last ten years there, Funseth managed the worldwide U.S. refugee program.

He received numerous awards for his for humanitarian achievements, particularly pioneer work on behalf of refugee women and children, improving refugee mental health, and negotiating the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners.

The following lines are from A Song of Appreciation (Bài Ca Cảm Ơn by Huỳnh Công Anh) dedicated by the Vietnamese Political Prisoners and Their Families to Robert Funseth when he was Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (from the Virtual Vietnam Archive, Item No. 1849150078000):

Some men have such humane hearts
Their love shines radiant like a halo
Their light pierces through the dark prison cells
Which mankind is all too disposed to forget.

Obituary:  http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Robert-Funseth&lc=1143&pid=175943118&mid=6609973

Symposium Call for Papers and Panels

“A Medical History of the Vietnam War”

 Sponsored by:
The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage

March 10-12, 2016
Holiday Inn San Antonio Airport, San Antonio, Texas

Presentations on all facets of medicine and healthcare related to the Vietnam War are welcome to include historical understandings of military medicine as practiced by all participants and in all geographic regions, the repercussions of the war on the practice of medicine, medicine in various campaigns, medical care outside of Vietnam, effects on the home front, postwar medical issues, mental health issues, and related topics.

Symposium organizers welcome both individual presentation proposals as well as pre-organized panel proposals that include two to three presentations. Symposium sessions will follow the standard 90 minute format to include one hour for presentations and 30 minutes for questions and discussion. Presentations by veterans are especially encouraged as are presentations by graduate students. All of the symposium organizers are partners with the Department of Defense’s Vietnam War Commemoration. In keeping with that partnership, there will be a dignified event to thank veterans for their service.

Proposal submission deadline is October 31, 2015. Please send a 250 word abstract and separate two-page CV/resume to steve.maxner@ttu.edu. If submitting a panel proposal, please include separate abstracts for each proposed presentation and CVs/resumes for each speaker.

Thank you for your interest in participating in this symposium.

Jan K. Herman was the chief medical historian of the Navy from 1979 to 2012, the curator of the Old Naval Observatory, and editor-in-chief of Navy Medicine for 30 years. Since 2000, he has written and produced documentaries for the US Navy highlighting its medical service. In the documentary and its companion book, The Lucky Few, Herman tells the “relatively unknown heroic tale” of one small US Navy destroyer escort’s participation in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Herman has authored more than 50 articles and monographs plus five other books.

Captain Paul Jacobs (USN, retired) will also be in attendance. Jacobs served as commanding officer of the USS Kirk in April-May 1975 during Operation Frequent Wind (the evacuation of Saigon), during which the USS Kirk escorted the ships of the South Vietnamese Navy and 30,000 refugees to safety.

This lecture is sponsored by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation and co-sponsored by the Museum of Texas Tech University.

As many of you may have already heard, longtime Associate Director and Archivist Mary Saffell has accepted the position of Senior Archivist/University Archivist with Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, beginning in October.  Mary joined the Vietnam Center and Archive in the spring of 2002 and has been instrumental in the growth the Archive has experienced over the last decade, as well as the development of the Virtual Vietnam Archive.

During her time with the VNCA, Mary has been a part of a significant number of wide-ranging projects.  She has received grants for and directed numerous archival projects, starting with a project to preserve the film “Dong Tam Base Camp,” part of the William Foulke Collection.  In 2005 Mary applied for a grant through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to process the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association/Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (FVPPA/VAHF) collection.  This grant was awarded in 2006 and led to the creation of the Vietnamese American Heritage Project at the Archive, as well as an additional NHPRC grant (currently ongoing) to digitize this invaluable collection.  In 2011  Mary, along with current Assistant Archivist Amy Mondt, and the VNCA’s former Communications Coordinator Victoria Lovelady, initiated the VNCA’s Guest Lecture Series, which to date has brought 14 speakers to Lubbock and will continue this fall with two additional speakers, and four speakers planned for 2014.

These are just a few of the many things Mary has been a part of during her nearly twelve years with the Vietnam Center and Archive.  She has played a vital role with the VNCA and will be greatly missed.  We wish her the best of luck in Fort Worth!