At the Veterans Breakfast Club,
Stories Unite Us.
Check out our online & in-person veterans storytelling programs and see our full event schedule below. All are welcome to join us!
In December 1972, President Richard Nixon ordered one of the most intense bombing campaigns of the Vietnam War. Known as Operation Linebacker II, or the Christmas Bombings, the operation sent waves of American B-52 bombers against targets around Hanoi and Haiphong, North Vietnam, in an effort to force a breakthrough in stalled peace negotiations.
From December 18–29, B-52 crews flew hundreds of missions into some of the most heavily defended airspace in the world. Fifteen B-52s were shot down during the campaign.
We invite all who flew and supported these dangerous missions to join us for the conversation.
Our special guest is Lt. Col. Calvin “Cal” Augustin, USAF (Ret.), a B-52 aircraft commander who flew 128 combat missions during four tours in Southeast Asia, including Operation Linebacker II. A recipient of three Distinguished Flying Crosses and eight Air Medals, Cal later flew the legendary SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft and enjoyed a long career in commercial aviation.
We would also like B-52 pilots and crew members, tanker crews, maintenance personnel, and anyone else involved in Linebacker II to join our live conversation and share their memories.
We’ll want to hear especially what it was like to fight North Vietnamese MiGs, anti-aircraft fire, and SAMs.
Whether you participated in the Christmas Bombings, served in Vietnam, or simply want to learn more about this dramatic and controversial chapter of the war, we welcome you to join the conversation.
Learn more about Cal Augustin: https://www.calvinaugustin.com/aviation-resume.php
#LinebackerII #ChristmasBombings #B52 #VietnamWar #VeteransBreakfastClub
Join the Veterans Breakfast Club and the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown for a lunch lecture with historian Todd DePastino about the millions of American women who were mobilized for World War II. In 1941, Wonder Woman appeared as the first female superhero. The timing was apt because with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, women began serving in occupations which had been barred to them just months earlier. Women’s lives not only changed during WWII, but the whole culture changed to accommodate these radically new gender roles. Come hear about Rosie the Riveters, the WAVES, the WACS, and the much disparaged WASPs, who only achieved official recognition decades after the war.
Todd DePastino is founder and executive director of the Veterans Breakfast Club and author of the award-winning Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front and six other books. A dynamic speaker with a Ph.D. in history from Yale, Todd has a gift for making the past come alive with insight, humor, and humanity.
This event is free and open to the public.
You don’t need to be a veteran to attend. Lunch is included.
We’d appreciate your RSVP and a suggested donation of $10 per person.
To RSVP, contact:
JCC Youngstown: 330-746-3250 ext #106 or bwilson@jewishyoungstown.org
Veterans Breakfast Club: 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.
Thank you to the Youngstown JCC and the Thomases Family Endowment for Supporting this Event!
Join us in Bethel Park, PA, for a FREE VBC storytelling event where you’ll meet a remarkable collection of people, each with a story to tell.
Our breakfast location in Bethel Park, PA, is our largest, where the group can reach over 250 people. Our veteran attendees range from WWII and Korean War through the Post-9/11 era. The program is fast-moving and wide-ranging with lots of participation. Everyone is welcome to join us.
We meet at Christ United Methodist Church (44 Highland Rd, Bethel Park 15102) in a large hall that also serves as a gym. We show photos of veterans on the three screens at the front and interact with as many veterans as we can. You’ll walk in, pick up your name badge, and meet others who are there to hear and share the stories. Breakfast is served at 8:30am. At 9:00am, we start the program. For the next 90 minutes, veterans share slices of their service experience. You never know what you’re going to hear, and there’s always new people with new memories to offer.
RSVP by calling 412-623-9029 or emailing joann@veteransbreakfastclub.org. Please make sure to RSVP for events at least two days in advance. We understand that your schedule can change quickly, but advance notice of attendance always helps us and our venues prepare the program. Thank you!
Thank you to our event sponsors:
Tonight we will talk about the future of war, rather than the past. By all accounts from the battlefields of Ukraine and elsewhere, unmanned aircraft have transformed modern warfare. Once expensive, highly specialized weapons used primarily for surveillance and targeted killings, drones have become inexpensive, widely available tools of war. They locate the enemy, strike targets large and small, and do so from long distances.
Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for a conversation with two leading experts on drone warfare: Brett Velicovich, a former U.S. Army special operations intelligence analyst and author of Drone Warrior, and Erik Lin-Greenberg, an MIT political scientist and author of The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft.
Velicovich takes us inside America’s secretive drone campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, where intelligence teams tracked terrorist leaders and helped direct lethal strikes. Lin-Greenberg offers a broader perspective on how drones are changing military strategy, international relations, and the political calculations behind decisions to use force.
Together, we’ll explore the remarkable evolution of drone technology, its role in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and what it means for the future of American military power. We’ll also consider the difficult questions raised by remote warfare: Who decides when to kill? How does distance change the experience of combat? Do drones protect soldiers and civilians, or make wars easier to start and harder to end?
