The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service. We’re the place where veterans can share what they’ve seen and done—and where everyone can listen and learn.

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Online storytelling programs for veterans and anyone interested in their stories from all over the USA.

In-Person
Veteran Events

Breakfasts and lunches around the USA where veterans, family, friends, and others meet to share their stories.

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In-depth veteran stories and history drawn from our VBC programs. You can check it out online or have it delivered in print.

Banner for VBC Greatest Generation Live World War II Conference, Tampa, Florida | December 2-6, 2026

VBC Greatest Generation Live World War II Conference

December 2–6, 2026 | Tampa, Florida

UPCOMING EVENTS

Event in Montgomery County, PA – October 12 @ 8:30am-10:30am

Date: October 12, 2026
Time: 8:30 am - 10:30 am
Location: Montgomery County Community College (340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422) College Hall
Events | In-Person Events
ChatGPT Image Sep 24, 2026 at 12_32_29 PM

Join us at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on Monday, October 12, from 8:30am-10:30am for a morning of breakfast and veterans sharing stories. You don’t need to be a veteran to attend.

What: Veterans Storytelling Breakfast, FREE and open to the public, courtesy of Montgomery County Community College Veterans Club and Montgomery County Department of Veterans Affairs

Where: Montgomery County Community College (340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422) College Hall (park in Morris Road Lot, see map below. Handicap parking at College Hall)

When: Monday, October 12, from 8:30am-10:30am.

How to RSVP: Leave your name and names of those in your party and a phone number to: 412-623-9029 or JoAnn@veteransbreakfastclub.org

The Veterans Breakfast Club brings American history to life. Join us to listen and learn, connect and heal, and say thank you to those who’ve served. You don’t need to be a veteran to attend.

Where else, but at the Veterans Breakfast Club, can you gather for a casual meal and meet a 101-year-old Navy WAVE codebreaker from World War II, a Silver Star recipient from Vietnam, and a Top Gun F-18 pilot all at the same time?

The Veterans Breakfast Club has been bringing these people and more together for face-to-face storytelling events since 2008. People come to listen and learn, connect and heal, and say thank you to those who’ve served.

These breakfasts began informally in 2008 with some 30 World War II veterans. They grew to give our organization its name and serve as the flagship for a growing array of storytelling programs where veterans of all eras and branches of service could share their experiences with the public. Most of these in-person events are held in the Pittsburgh region, but we’re branching out to other locations to reach more veterans and hear more stories. One week we might might be in a VFW hall, then next week a country club or a banquet room.

We serve breakfast at 8:30am, start the program at 9:00am, and bounce around the room with the microphone until 10:30am listening to as many veterans as we can. You never know what you’re going to hear. There are often a few tears, and always a lot of laughter. Join our community of listening by coming to one of our face-to-face storytelling events!

Author and Vietnam War helicopter Pilot Lieutenant Colonel Joe Finch

Date: October 12, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: Zoom, Facebook, YouTube
Events | Online Events
ChatGPT Image Sep 24, 2026 at 02_29_52 PM

Join us Monday, October 12, for VBC Live with retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Finch, a decorated Vietnam War helicopter pilot and author of *Angel’s Wing: A Year in the Skies of Vietnam.”
 
Finch arrived in Vietnam in 1969 as a young lieutenant assigned to A Company, 25th Aviation Battalion—the “Little Bears”—of the 25th Infantry Division. Based at Cu Chi and flying the UH-1 Huey, Finch and his fellow aviators did just about everything the soldiers on the ground needed: carrying troops into and out of combat, delivering ammunition, food, water and mail, and picking up the wounded. As Finch puts it, the mission was simple: “You accomplish what those guys on the ground need most.”
 
For Finch, medical evacuation was more than another assignment. Badly wounded soldiers who might otherwise die could be delivered to a surgical team in a matter of minutes by his efforts. 
 
By Finch’s account, he medically evacuated 826 wounded personnel during his Vietnam service, often flying repeatedly into landing zones under enemy fire. He received two Silver Stars and the Distinguished Flying Cross for missions involving rescue and resupply.
 
One of those rescues came back to him decades later. While Finch was signing copies of his book, *Angel’s Wing*, a stranger approached and asked for his Vietnam call sign. “Little Bear 26,” Finch answered. The man had been shot through the femur by a .50-caliber round and remembered the helicopter pilot who refused to leave him behind under fire. He had come back to introduce Finch to the wife and children he had lived to have because that Huey waited for him.
 
Finch tells these stories in *Angel’s Wing*, his memoir of his year with the Little Bears. The book captures both the extraordinary and the everyday experience of helicopter crews in Vietnam—the noise, confusion, fear, dark humor, improvisation, and the tremendous responsibility placed on very young men flying complicated machines in unforgiving conditions.
 
On VBC Live, we’ll talk with Joe Finch about learning to fly the Huey, life with the Little Bears, supporting infantrymen on the ground, flying into hot landing zones, medevac missions, the men he carried out, and what those experiences have meant to him more than half a century later.
 
As always, we’ll take your questions and comments live.

 

Every Veteran Has a Story.
Hear Them Now.

GET INVOLVED TODAY

The mission of the Veterans Breakfast Club is to create communities of listening around veterans and their stories to ensure that this living history will never be forgotten.  We believe that through our work, people will be connected, educated, healed, and inspired.

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By Todd DePastino I thought I knew most of the little books, pamphlets, newspapers, and guides the U.S. Army produced for its troops during World...
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The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service.

Our goal is to build a nation that understands and values the experiences of our military veterans so that every day is Veterans Day.

We do this by bringing together–in-person and online–men and women from all walks of life, all ages and eras, and every branch of service to talk about what they’ve seen and done. We want to hear how people’s military service has shaped them. “Every Veteran Has a Story” is our slogan. We want to hear every one.

We share the stories we hear in our weekly VBC Bulletin email newsletter and our quarterly VBC Magazine. We also record a weekly podcast, The Scuttlebutt, about military culture from the people who lived it.

We do all this because we believe the best way to thank a Veteran is to listen.

Listening is what the VBC has been doing for the past 15 years, when we held our first small event outside of Pittsburgh. Since then, we’ve held over 1,000 programs in-person and online and have welcomed over 20,000 different people at our events, Veterans and non-Veterans coming together to listen.

We value every veteran’s experience, no matter who they are or when or how they served. We’ve seen up close the power of storytelling, as the memories shared at VBC events connect, heal, educate, and inspire an ever-expanding circle of listeners.

THE SCUTTLEBUTT

Your weekly dose of veterans’ stories, military news, and the latest headlines, all in one place

Watch and listen to the Scuttlebutt, the VBC’s podcast dedicated to understanding military culture. Hosted by Shaun Hall, Director of Programming. New episode every Monday at 6AM ET.

THE VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT

Preserving veterans’ stories so that this living history is never forgotten.

We pair passionate VBC volunteers with military veterans for one-on-one oral history interviews over Zoom. If you are a veteran, or you know a veteran, who would be interested in sharing his or her story with us, let us know. If you are someone interested in conducting these interviews, please reach out!

At any given event, you might hear from the newest members of Space Force to a 101-year-old World War II veteran.

We’ve welcomed Tin Can Sailors and Montford Point Marines, Vietnam Sky Soldiers and Cold War intelligence officers. We’ve heard stories from the Horn of Africa to Antarctica, the Bering Sea to Diego Garcia, and all points in between.

LORAN Coast Guardsmen and Radar Station Airmen have told us about serving in some of the most remote places on earth.

Korean War veterans have borne witness to their “forgotten war.”

Other “forgotten warriors” shared their memories of Beirut, Grenada, and Mogadishu.

Some of the first women authorized for combat shared stories of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of the Purple Hearts they received.

Join us at our events and help keep these stories alive.

All you need to do is listen.