The Vietnam Center and Archive is now on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vietnamTTU.  Keep up with VNCA news, updates from events, and more right in your Twitter feed.  If you already have a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com/vietnamTTU and click “follow.”

Oral historian Jason Stewart will be leaving the Vietnam Archive on July 15, 2011, to pursue a teaching career in Mississippi. Jason has been with us for nearly three years, and we will certainly miss his hard work and devotion to the mission of the archive. Jason has been a strong advocate for America’s Vietnam veterans, and we greatly appreciate all he has done to help record their history. Please join us in wishing Jason and his family the absolute best in this transition and in all their future endeavors.

In June 1971 the New York Times published the “Pentagon Papers,” officially titled the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Taskforce.  The release of these documents had a profound effect on American public opinion regarding the war, and has provided historians with an invaluable look at US policy making with regards to the Vietnam War.  Today, 40 years after the NYT publication, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the entire official Report, including 2,300 pages of previously undisclosed material not included in the Senator Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.  Hardcopies of the records will be available at the following locations: the National Archives facility at College Park, MD; the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, MA; the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, TX, and the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA.  The records are also available online in their entirety at http://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/.For more information about the Pentagon Papers and the release of the records, see:

• The NARA Press Release regarding the release of the records
• The Pentagon Papers page on the NARA website

Also this week, Vietnam Center and Archive Director Stephen Maxner will accompany Mr. Tran Van Tuan, Minister of Home Affairs of Vietnam, and Dr. Vu Thi Minh Huong, the Director General of the State Records and Archives Department of Vietnam (the National Archivist of Vietnam), to Washington DC to meet with the Archivist of the United States, Mr. David Ferriero.  Following the meeting, the delegation and Dr. Maxner will return to Lubbock to discuss collaboration and joint projects between the Vietnam Center and Archive, the Vietnam State Records and Archives Department, and NARA.

Part two of the local PBS channel’s “Keeping it Local” series on the Vietnam Center and Archive can now be viewed online at http://www.ktxt.org/productions.asp or by clicking the play icon below. This segment focuses on Kim Phuc, “the girl in the photo” and the second speaker in the Vietnam Center and Archive’s 2011 Guest Lecture Series.

KTXT’s complete interview with Kim Phuc can be viewed on their YouTube page – http://www.youtube.com/ktxtdt

The Vietnam Archive is proud to unveil its new program and online exhibit “Techsans in the Vietnam War.” We created this program to honor Texas Tech grads who served in the Vietnam War. Anyone can nominate a veteran for this program. The requirements are that the honoree graduated from Texas Tech University, before or after their service, and served in Vietnam between 1960–1975. If you nominate someone for this program, please assist us by filling out our Techsans in the Vietnam War Biographical Submission Form (available at the link below) and sending us images. If we have documents or images of an honoree in our collection, we will include them on their page, but the more information that you can provide to us the better. If you participate in this program, please consider donating your original images and documents to the archive, as we would love to be able to preserve materials from our TTU grads.

Once we receive your nomination, biography, and images, we will create a web page honoring or memorializing the Tech grad in our “Techsans in the Vietnam War” online exhibit. Please be aware that we want these pages to be well crafted, which means that we may take some time to put up an honor/memorial page, especially if we receive numerous requests at one time. We also reserve the right to exclude information or images from pages for any reason. If we receive a name with no images or biographical information and we are unable to find any information in our collection, we will add the name to a page in the exhibit that lists Tech grads that served and/or died in Vietnam and they will not have an individual page until we receive more information.

To start this program, we have memorial pages for three Texas Tech grads who were military officers who served and died in Vietnam. Please click on the exhibit link below to see the memorial pages for Lieutenant Lee Roy Herron, 1^st Lieutenant Louis K. Breuer IV and Major Samuel B. Cornelius.

To nominate someone for this program please contact Amy Mondt at vietnamarchive@ttu.edu.

To view the exhibit or find the Techsans in the Vietnam War Submission Form click this link. www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/TTU

For all the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us and our freedoms, thank you.  Happy Memorial Day from the Vietnam Center and Archive staff.

Vietnam Memorial Wall Ryan Aranda - 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Division Association Collection

May 6 – 12 is Nurses Week; a week dedicated to saying thank you to nurses for all that they do for their patients and communities.  In honor of this week, the Vietnam Center and Archive has developed an online exhibit titled National Nurses Week – Celebrating the Nurses of the Vietnam War.  To see the exhibit please click on the title above or use the link at the bottom of this post.

1st Lieutenant Cheri Hawes, US Army Nurse Corps, at desk for Emergency Room, 91st Evacuation Hospital, Chu Lai, Vietnam

In addition to the exhibit, the VNCA is hosting LeAnn Thieman, the third speaker in our Guest Lecture Series.  Thieman is a nurse with over 30 years of experience who volunteered to help with Operation Babylift in the final days of the Vietnam War.  She is also an author in the popular Chicken Soup series and will speaking at the Lanier Auditorium at the Texas Tech Law School on Thursday May 12th at 7:00.  The lecture is free and open to the public.  For more information about LeAnn or the guest lecture series, please visit the Guest Lecture Series site.

LeAnn Thieman

For all the nurses, thank you for all that you do.

National Nurses Week – Celebrating the Nurses of the Vietnam War

www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/nurses/

Guest Lecture Series

www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/LectureSeries/2011.htm

Photo from FVPPA Collection's ODP Application Files

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), a nationally recognized time to celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the United States’ history, culture, and society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2005-09 American Community Survey there are 13,201,056 Americans of Asian descent and 447,591 Americans of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander descent residing in the U.S.

May was chosen as APAHM due to two important historical dates and events relating to the contributions of Asian and Pacific Americans to the U.S. taking place in May. First, May 7, 1843 is the date the first Japanese immigrants to the U.S. arrived. Second, May 10, 1869 is when the transcontinental railroad was completed; many Chinese immigrants labored laying the tracks.

To find out more view our APAHM online exhibit.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present the third speaker in our 2011 Guest Lecture Series, Mrs. LeAnn Thieman.  In April 1975, during the closing days of the Vietnam War, US and international organizations, with the support of the US government, undertook a daring mission to evacuate Vietnamese infants and children, many of them orphans, out of the country. This mission was codenamed Operation Babylift. LeAnn Thieman, working as a volunteer for Friends of Children of Vietnam, was one of the nurses who became involved in the operation. Originally agreeing to escort six babies out of Vietnam, including her newly adopted son, upon her arrival in Saigon LeAnn heard the news that President Gerald Ford had approved Operation Babylift and that she would instead be helping 300 children leave South Vietnam.

LeAnn Thieman has been a nurse for over 30 years, and her experiences with Operation Babylift have significantly impacted on her life. Since the war, LeAnn has become a celebrated presenter, earning the Certified Speaking Professional designation. In 2008, LeAnn was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame. Additionally, she has authored or co-authored eleven books in the Chicken Soup series, as well as three other books and a bimonthly E-zine called “Sip of Soup.”  Her book This Must Be My Brother recounts her experiences during Operation Babylift, while Adrift in the Storms: A Twenty Year Journey to Peace is the true story of one of the children she helped rescue. She has appeared on countless radio and television programs and in numerous print publications. Talks are currently underway to produce her story as a feature film.

The location of the lecture has been changed from the previously announced location to the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech School of Law, and will be held on Thursday, May 12th at 7:00pm.  Admission is free and open to the public.  LeAnn will be available for a book signing immediately following the lecture, and copies of her books will be available for purchase.

An invitation-only reception with LeAnn for the Friends of the Vietnam Center will be held from 6:00-6:45pm in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library on the day of the lecture.

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 2011 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS.

Kim Phuc, “the girl in the picture,” will speak this week as part of our 2011 Guest Lecture Series. Kim’s lecture will be held on Thursday, April 14th at 7:00pm in the Allen Theatre of the Texas Tech Student Union Building. Admission is free and open to the public.  The lecture will be followed by an invitation-only reception with Mrs. Phuc for the Friends of the Vietnam Center in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library.

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 2011 VNCA Guest Lecture Series or about Kim Phuc see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS.