We welcome helicopter pilots in Vietnam to VBC LIVE to discuss their service with these iconic machines. Nothing, in fact, is more closely associated with the Vietnam War than the helicopter.

More than 12,000 helicopters served in Southeast Asia, carrying troops into battle, evacuating the wounded, escorting convoys, directing artillery, scouting enemy positions, and providing close air support. For the men who flew them, every mission demanded skill and courage, plus some luck.

Joining us are Army helicopter pilots whose combined experiences span some of the most important aircraft and missions of the war.

Barry Lloyd flew UH-1 Huey gunships and OH-23 Raven scout helicopters during two combat tours in Vietnam. Twice wounded in action, he survived being shot down before going on to a distinguished civilian career as Chief Pilot for CAL FIRE.

Barry Desfor flew UH-1 Hueys and AH-1 Cobra gunships in Vietnam before returning as an instructor pilot. After the war, he founded HeliValue$ and created The Official Helicopter Blue Book®, the worldwide standard for helicopter valuation.

Gil Ferrey flew OH-23 Ravens and UH-1 Hueys, first in Korea and then with the legendary 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment during its deployment to Vietnam. As a command-and-control pilot, he witnessed firsthand how helicopters transformed modern warfare.

Together they’ll discuss what it was like to fly low over jungle canopies, insert troops into landing zones, escort convoys, search for enemy forces, and survive one of the most dangerous jobs of the Vietnam War.

If you flew helicopters in Vietnam or served in Army aviation we especially invite you to join us and share your own memories and questions.

Among the helicopters we’ll discuss are some of these icons of the war:

• UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) – the workhorse utility helicopter used for troop transport, medevac, command and control, and gunship missions.
• AH-1 Cobra – the Army’s first purpose-built attack helicopter, developed to escort Hueys and provide devastating fire support.
• OH-23 Raven – a light observation helicopter used for scouting, artillery spotting, and command-and-control missions during the early years of the war.
• OH-6 Cayuse (“Loach”) – a tiny, agile scout helicopter famous for flying dangerously low in search of enemy forces.
• CH-47 Chinook – the Army’s heavy-lift helicopter, capable of carrying troops, artillery, vehicles, and supplies.
• CH-54 Skycrane – the giant flying crane used to recover downed aircraft and move heavy equipment.

In August 1969, nearly half a million Americans gathered at a farm in Upstate New York for what would become a defining moment of a generation: the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. But Woodstock wasn’t really about music. In large part, it was about war. And the soundtrack it produced revealed the nation’s fault lines of protest, patriotism, grief, and defiance.

Join the Veterans Breakfast Club as we return to one of our most popular conversations: the music of the Vietnam War era. This time, we mark the 57th anniversary of Woodstock and add some new voices.

We’ll be joined by longtime VBC favorites Doug Bradley, Donn Nemchick, and Shaun Hall, along with two special guests who bring fresh perspective:

• Ron Farina, a U.S. Marine who lived the war these songs were trying to make sense of
• Mary Ellen Junda, a nationally recognized music historian, conductor, and educator whose work explores how song expresses social consciousness and binds communities together

Dr. Junda’s scholarship focuses on how music helps us process social change and conflict. She studies folk traditions and how music shapes as much as it represents the age.

We’ll talk about what troops in Vietnam actually listened to and what they knew about the changing music scene back home. We’ll also talk about Woodstock and what it meant.

Peter J. Ortiz may be the most remarkable American you’ve never heard of.

A Marine officer, OSS operative, and veteran of the French Foreign Legion, Ortiz led one of the most extraordinary military careers of World War II. Captured by the Germans more than once, he repeatedly escaped, returned to the fight, and eventually parachuted into occupied France to organize Resistance fighters, rescue downed Allied airmen, gather intelligence, and carry out sabotage missions behind enemy lines. His exploits became the stuff of legend, yet today his story remains surprisingly little known.

Join us as we talk with historian and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds and researcher Katie S. Sanders, authors of Ortiz’s War: The Allies’ Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France, a new biography that reconstructs the life of this remarkable Marine and OSS officer from American and French archives. Along the way we’ll discuss the wartime OSS, the French Resistance, intelligence operations in occupied Europe, and the challenges of separating fact from myth when writing about someone whose life often seems almost too extraordinary to believe.

Nicholas Reynolds is the author of several acclaimed books on intelligence and World War II, including Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy and Need to Know. Katie Sanders is a historian whose research focuses on military history and special operations. Together they have produced what is likely to become the definitive account of Peter Ortiz’s life.

We hope you’ll join us for what should be an engaging conversation about one of the most fascinating—and overlooked—figures of World War II.

The Baghdad Shuffle is a crime thriller set against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but much of the world behind it comes directly from author Josh Bates’s own experience as a Marine.

Bates was serving as a Marine infantry officer when his unit pushed north from Kuwait into Iraq and eventually into Baghdad. What stayed with him was not only the combat, but the chaos that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime—the looting, criminal activity, money left behind, and Marines suddenly dealing with situations far outside conventional warfare. One episode in particular, a Baghdad bank robbery involving thieves trying to breach a vault with RPGs, became part of the inspiration for the story he would eventually write.

Although the novel is fiction, Bates says much of the Iraq section grew out of things he actually experienced during the initial push to Baghdad and the period that followed. He estimates that roughly 85 to 90 percent of the events informing the first act happened to him in some form, then were condensed and reshaped for the story.

We’ll talk with Josh about his Marine Corps career, his experiences during the invasion of Iraq, and how those memories eventually became the foundation for a novel. We’ll also discuss the mix of military experience, crime, humor, and absurdity that shaped The Baghdad Shuffle, and why he wanted the book to reflect the perspective of the young Marines who actually lived through those early days of the war.

Josh Bates is a retired Marine infantry and intelligence officer, podcaster, and author. The Baghdad Shuffle is his first novel.

Lt. Col. Frederick C. Brems carried a camera throughout his World War II service with the 2nd Armored Division, preserving an extraordinary visual record of the war as he experienced it.

Brems enlisted before the attack on Pearl Harbor and eventually served in Europe with the famed “Hell on Wheels” division. From the fall of 1944 through the end of the war, he photographed the soldiers, vehicles, towns, battlefields, and everyday moments around him. His journey included the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Grenade, the advance across Germany, the occupation of Berlin, and the long road home.

Join us for a conversation with his son, retired Lt. Col. Frederick “Fred” Brems, about Knights of Freedom: With the Hell on Wheels Armored Division in World War II, A Story in Photos. The book brings together more than 500 photographs taken by his father, along with wartime letters and the stories he shared with his family over the years. Together, they offer a deeply personal account of one soldier’s service and a vivid look at life inside an American armored division during the final campaigns of the war in Europe.

We’ll talk about the photographs, the stories behind them, and the process of turning a family archive into a detailed history. Brems will also discuss his father’s experiences with the 2nd Armored Division, including combat during the Battle of the Bulge, the Allied drive into Germany, and the occupation that followed. The book contains nearly 600 photographs, dozens of maps, and hundreds of additional illustrations documenting that journey.

Fred Brems is an educator, researcher, writer, and photographer who spent years studying his father’s wartime service and preserving the collection he left behind. He has also worked in U.S. embassies and schools in the United States and overseas.

We hope you’ll join us for this remarkable story of war, memory, family history, and the photographs that brought one veteran’s experience back to life.