"Lai Khe, Vietnam. C Co, 701st Maint company area. Thanksgiving Day Dinner. I don't know how many turkey legs there were, but ISG Lowe got his." - November 1968, Philip Varsel Collection

The Vietnam Center and Archive would like to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving. 

See more images of Thanksgiving in Vietnam from the Virtual Vietnam Archive (link).

Members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii research in the CDEC Collection at the Vietnam Archive

The Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC) Microfilm Collection is one of our most often used collections, and one on the most frustrating to access due to its lack of a useful index.  The collection contains a variety of documents captured from the North Vietnamese and Vietcong during the war, and is an invaluable resource for researchers.  Since 2004, we have been working on adding the materials from this collection to the Virtual Vietnam Archive, and have currently added over 39,000 files (325,000 pages), representing just a fraction of this collection.  Thousands of new pages are added each month.

The Vietnam Center and Archive, with the assistance of the Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) and the Texas Tech Computer Science Department, is currently working on a project to make the entire collection available online, including the metadata from the 8-bit coding created by the Filesearch machine during the original filming of the materials during the war.

For more information about CDEC, including a brief history of the collection, instructions for searching for items in the Virtual Vietnam Archive, and our future plans for making the entire collection available online, see our new Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC) Collection Digitization Project page.

Links:

The CDEC Collection Digitization Project page – http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/resources/cdec/

The Virtual Vietnam Archive – http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/

The Summer/Fall issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is available for download on our website.  Articles include information about the Texas Tech student trip to Southeast Asia, a call for papers for our Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium, an update on the Graffiti Project, and more.

If you would like to receive a full color printed version of this newsletter in your mailbox, please consider becoming a friend of the Vietnam Center.  Membership information can be found at this link.

Links:

Newsletters: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/newsletters.php

Membership Information: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/

The Vietnam Center and Archive was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Gerald Hickey in Chicago, Illinois on November 9, 2010.  Hickey was a prominent anthropologist who was best known for his work with Montagnard tribes in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  His first work in Vietnam was with Michigan State University from 1956-1959 to help rural South Vietnamese develop a modern nation-state.  During this time he particularly became interested in working with the Montagnards.  In fact, Hickey returned to Vietnam in 1964 as an employee of the RAND Corporation where he spent nine years tirelessly fighting for improved political rights and economic conditions for the Montagnards.

We are proud to have close to 20 linear feet of material at the Vietnam Center and Archive in the Gerald Hickey Collection to include photographs, textiles, swords, and carvings as well as many rare books on Montagnard culture in French, Vietnamese, and English.  More than just being an important donor to the Vietnam Center and Archive, Gerald Hickey was a good friend.  He will be greatly missed.

Hickey’s Funeral Mass will be held at 10:00 AM on Saturday, November 13 at Immaculate Conception Church, 1415 N. North Park, Chicago, Illinois.  Visitation will begin at 9:00 AM and last until the beginning of Mass.

For more information about Gerald Hickey including two issues of Friends of the Vietnam Center featuring articles on him and a list of the contents in his collection at the Vietnam Center and Archive, please view the following links:

Summer/Fall 2008 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Summer/Fall 2010 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Link to the contents of the Gerald Hickey Collection

The staff of the Vietnam Center and Archive wishes to say thank you to all the veterans and their families for their service.  Happy Veteran’s Day!

Today is the Marine Corps 235th birthday.  Congratulations and many happy returns, U.S. Marine Corps!  We have put together a small exhibit of Marine-related materials from our collection.  Click here to see the exhibit.

Link:

http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/marines/

Kevin Conness unpacks the binnacle from the Pioneer Commander

This week the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) transferred a number of naval artifacts from the SS Pioneer Commander to the Vietnam Archive.  The Pioneer Commander, laid down in 1962 as the SS American Commander, participated in the evacuation of South Vietnam in March 1975 from Danang and Cam Ranh Bay.  That month the Pioneer Commander and other Military Sealift Command ships evacuated over 30,000 Americans and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.  In 1981, the Pioneer Commander was transferred to MARAD to become part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Beaumont, TX.

The Vietnam Center and Archive’s relationship with MARAD began in 2005 when staff members from the Archive traveled to Suisun Bay in California to remove canvas bunk bottoms and other artifacts off of two ships, the USNS General John Pope and the USNS General Edwin D. Patrick, as part of our Vietnam Graffiti Project.

Jenna Remily helps unpack many of the smaller artifacts

Artifacts transferred from the Pioneer Commander include an azimuth circle, binnacle, engine order telegraphs, the builder’s plate, navigation lights, a gyro repeater, and a 14 foot-long name plate.  In the coming months these items will be processed and images of the artifacts will be made available on the Virtual Vietnam Archive as part of the SS Pioneer Commander (AK-2016) Collection.

We especially want to thank the Maritime Administration for their assistance with this project.

• Maratime Administration
• PMARS Ship Record Detail (MARAD) for Pioneer Commander
• Navasource – Pioneer Commander
• Vietnam Graffiti Project
• Virtual Vietnam Archive