Written by Bill Moran At our last Veterans Breakfast Club event, we talked about the uses and abuses of the M1 steel pot helmet, which was standard issue from 1941-1985. After the event, Vietnam veteran Bill Moran, who served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade (B Co, 5th Bn, 12 Inf) from October 1969
Written by Todd DePastino The Inter-American Geodetic Survey (IAGS) was the most important Cold War project you’ve never heard of. Its mission was to map the vast uncharted regions of Latin American . . . and collect on-the-ground intelligence in the process. Bad maps lose wars. Napoleon might have triumphed at Waterloo if he'd
Written by John H Davis Writer, veteran, and "the most tattooed person with a Harvard degree," John H. Davis, stumbled upon the Veterans Breakfast Club and sent us this endorsement of our storytelling mission. John was an infantry squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division and has multiple combat tours behind him. He's author
← BACK TO VBC BLOG Why Didn't Marines Wear Helmet Bands in Vietnam? The Army called it "Band, Helmet, Camouflage, US" and issued it to soldiers in Vietnam. The USMC didn't. Why? Left: 17-year-old USMC Private Richard Coggins waits on the beach during the Marine landing at Da Nang, 1965. Right: Army Sergeant
← BACK TO VBC BLOG When Veterans Stormed the Capital: The March of the Bonus Army of 1932, part 2 On July 28, 1932, General Douglas MacArthur, with Majors George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, drove thousands of protesting World War I veterans out of Washington, DC, by force. The trauma
← BACK TO VBC BLOG In last week's VBC Bulletin, we linked to a War History Online story on drop tank canoes: detachable light-metal external fuel tanks that US fighter jets dropped by the thousands over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. These tank halves made nifty canoes that locals still use fifty
