The Oral History Project at the Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that Jason Stewart will be joining our faculty. Jason comes to us from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he is ABD in his doctoral studies. Jason is a specialist in the history of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and is working with Professor Andy Wiest at USM. Jason will be conducting interviews for the Project, and we are very pleased to have him aboard. Please join us in welcoming Jason to Lubbock.

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Did you know that the Vietnam Archive also has a library? The library’s purpose is to support the research mission of the archive by providing books, journals, and other print resources on Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Southeast Asia, and especially the role that the United States played in the Vietnam War. We have fiction and nonfiction, children’s books, coffee table books, theses and dissertations, Bibles, and even comic books. There are books on agriculture, archaeology, music, pirates, prostitution, radicalism, theology, and zoology, and so much more. Of course, the library has all this, in addition to the stuff you were imagining that we have such as history books, magazines, personal narratives, atlases, and reference materials.

Ideally, if a book is within the scope of our collection, we hope to have not just one, but up to three copies of it, preserving these copies for researchers and the future. We receive the majority of our collection through donations to the archive, but we also have a budget for purchasing books, serials, microforms, dissertations, and theses. You can view our holdings through the Texas Tech University Library’s online catalog. Select “Advanced Search,” go down to “Limit search (Optional),” and under “Location,” choose “Southwest Coll./Special Coll.” before entering your search query.

Your comments, input, questions and suggestions are always welcome.

Sebastian Arandia graduated from Texas Tech University on May 10, 2008 with a BA in History. He has been accepted into Texas A&M; University’s History graduate program and will begin in August of 2008. Sebastian started working at the Vietnam Archive in May of 2007 and began working on the Familes of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (VAHF) collection on July 17th 2007. He has proven himself a very conscientious, dedicated, and hard working student assistant with a passion for History and learning. Sebastian chose to work at the Vietnam Archive so that he could have “… the opportunity to have a hands-on experience with the history of the Vietnam War.” Sebastian enjoys working with the FVPPA (VAHF) collection because by doing so he is “…preserving and making known the history of the thousands of Vietnamese refugees who left their country after April 30, 1975.” Congratulations and Good Luck Sebastian. We wish you best. We know you are on the road to a bright future.

Mr. David Shelly, an Army Combat Veteran of the Vietnam War, and Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Center Advisory Board, passed away on July 4th after a long illness. He was 59 years old. Services are pending with Bartley Funeral Home of Plainview.

Update: Memorial services for David A. Shelly will be 10 a.m. Friday at the Lubbock Area Veterans’ War Memorial at 4001 82nd Street under the direction of Bartley Funeral Home of Plainview. Interment will follow at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery at a later date.

The Vietnam Center and Archive will be closed on July 4th in honor of Independence Day.

The Vietnam Center and Archive’s May 28th, 2008 opening ceremony of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection, donated by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF), was a great success. The Vietnam Center and Archive co-hosted the event, entitled “We Did Not Forget Those Left Behind,” with the VAHF. The ceremony marked the collection as fully processed and available to researchers. The Vietnam Center and Archive held the ceremony to raise awareness of the FVPPA collection and to thank those individuals and organizations who helped these Vietnamese refugees emigrate to the U.S.

Speakers at the event included: Dr. James Reckner, Executive Director, Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy, and Reconciliation; Ms. Nancy Bui, President, Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation; Ms. Khuc Minh Tho, Founder and President, Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association; An Hoang Le, Humanitarian Operations Participant; Dr. Stephen F. Maxner, Director, the Vietnam Center and Archive; Mr. T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia & Pacific, Amnesty International; Ms. Anna Mallett, Project Archivist, the Vietnam Center and Archive; Dr. William M. Marcy, Provost, Texas Tech University; and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deputy regional representative Thomas Albrecht was scheduled to speak, but had to cancel his flight and attendance due to events in East Africa, Kenya.

Distinguished guests at the May 28th Opening Ceremony included Khuc Minh Tho, T. Kumar of Amnesty International, Major General Dudley Faver, representatives of the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, and Texas Tech University Provost William M. Marcy.

Awards were given from the VAHF to Dr. James Reckner, Dr. Stephen Maxner, Mary Saffell, and Ann Mallett. The Vietnam Center and Archive also presented an award to Ann Mallett.

Letters of written for the May 28th Opening Ceremony by Senator John McCain, Senator Bob Dole, President George H. W. Bush, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Robert L. Funseth (Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Acting Director of the Bureau for Refugee Programs) are posted on our website for researchers to read when they look the FVPPA collection. These letters, along with the FVPPA collection’s scope and content note, administrative history, finding aid, and names search database, may be viewed on the following webpage of the Vietnam Archive’s Virtual Archive: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchive/fvppa/index.htm

-All photos are were taken by The Vietnam Center’s Victoria Lovelady

View more pictures of the opening ceremony