By Todd DePastino Last night, Ben Wright, Larry Woods, and I all walked out of the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh together after our 70th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement Commemoration event. As we filed from the elevator through the first-floor Great Hall, we passed a much-treasured artifact from World War II:
Written by Todd DePastino In 2009, when the VBC was just beginning, I visited a retirement community just east of Pittsburgh and met a man who called himself "Big George." Big George carried clippings from Stars & Stripes and Yank Magazine, yellow brittle rectangles of folded paper that left behind flakes wherever they went.
Written by Harry Van Riper I don’t know where I’d be without the Army. Before Vietnam took my arm, the Army saved my life. Harry Van Riper tells his story at a VBC breakfast in September 2016 at the 911th Airlift Wing I was a troubled teen, a real hellraiser. I rolled my
written by Carole Wagener For Bill and Carole Wagener, 1969 was The Hardest Year. Newlyweds separated by 10,000 miles, Bill served in the 865th Engineer Gas Generating Detachment at Cha Rang Valley while Carole was a student at protest-wracked University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their 300-plus letters back and forth are the basis of a new book recounting their
Written by Ron Farina Of the almost 2 million Americans who have received Purple Hearts since World War II, only about 500 have been women. The vast majority of these women earned the award since September 11, 2001. On two VBC Happy Hours in March, we had nine such recipients join us, along with
Written by Beth Reuschel In Part 1, military records researcher Beth Reuschel explained how to use wartime letters to create a timeline of your veteran's service in World War II. Below, Beth focuses on the next step: delving into military records. Learn more at reuschelresearch.com. In Part 1, I covered how to read your veteran’s wartime
