Historian and VBC Director Todd DePastino presents the fourth in his series on Vietnam’s history and culture by telling the story of how Ho Chi Minh forged a nationalist independence movement from the remnants of a torn peasant society. Vietnam, in fact, still retains vestiges of its not-so-distant feudalistic past of peasant
Forty years ago on October 23, the US Marine Corps suffered its deadliest single-day attack since the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. On that day, in Beirut, Lebanon, a yellow Mercedes loaded with 12,000 pounds of explosives sped toward a four-story concrete building that served as headquarters and barracks for the 1st
Forty years ago, on October 25, 1983, U.S. forces, with a coalition of Caribbean nations, launched Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of Grenada, an island nation at the southern tip of the Lesser Antilles, about 500 miles from the Venezuelan coast. It was a key moment in a volatile year that saw the
Thirty years ago, US forces in Mogadishu, Somalia, suffered their worst casualties in battle since Vietnam. Eighteen Americans were killed, and 73 wounded. But what most remember are the grim images of these dead Americans being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The disaster and the public outcry over it drew the US
New York Times bestselling author Alex Kershaw joins Glenn Flickinger and Michael Caldwell and Kali Schick from the National Medal of Honor Museum to discuss his most recent book, Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II. Against All Odds tells the untold story of four of
The VBC marks International Peace Day with a special program on Just War Theory. Experts Greg Yoest, Ben Wright and Margot Hillman will present and comment upon the possibility of establishing ethical principles and criteria for determining whether the use of military force is morally justifiable. We call this effort “Just War Theory.” Rooted
