The Veterans Breakfast Club mails almost 12,000 copies of VBC Magazine every quarter directly to households and another 5,000 boxed up for hand distribution around the country. Rarely do we learn where those bulk copies end up.
The other day, Laura Nigro emailed me to let me know who received her 100 copies, and the list is amazing.
Throughout 2025, Laura personally handed copies of VBC Magazine and Vietnam: A Veterans Breakfast Club History to veterans and veteran-serving organizations across Alamance, Guilford, and neighboring counties in Central North Carolina.
These publications did not sit on shelves. They moved directly into veterans’ hands at, in her words, “coffee meetups, Legion breakfasts, speaker programs, resource fairs, stand downs, car shows and patriotic ceremonies. The venues where this happens are Legion halls, community centers, public libraries, restaurants, theaters, college arenas, nursing facilities, private convention spaces, parks and mall parking lots.”
Laura tracked each issue she shared and where it went. Over the past year, VBC publications reached veterans and staff at places including White Oak of Burlington, AuthoraCare Collective, NCWorks Career Center, Alamance County Veterans Services, the North Carolina Department of Military & Veterans Affairs, American Legion Posts, Veterans Coffee at Richard Childress Racing, and veteran-owned spaces such as Salvation Coffee Company and Charlie Mike – The Commissary.
Copies were also shared at large public gatherings, including High Point University’s Veterans Day celebration and The Wall That Heals when it came to Roxboro.
Wherever Laura went, the magazines disappeared quickly, eagerly picked up by veterans and their families.
Laura’s work is deeply personal. She often signs her emails as “the voice of my beloved late Marine.”
Her husband, John Leo Barry, served in the United States Marine Corps from 1960 to 1966, during the early years of the Vietnam War. Like many Vietnam veterans, John spoke sparingly about his service. Laura has written movingly about the regret many spouses feel when those stories remain untold—and about how she now listens closely to other veterans, knowing how easily their voices can be lost.
That sense of urgency seems to drive everything she does.
Her distribution usually comes with a story. She hands the veteran a magazine and then listens as the veterans shares a story of service. It could be a Vietnam-era veteran talking while flipping through pages or a caregiver reading to a veteran in hospice. She’s seen nursing facility residents linger over familiar words and images.
At The Wall That Heals in Roxboro, NC during early May, Laura offered a book and pin to site volunteer Huong Le. She was there with her son in background and husband Thao Phung. Huong shared their family’s multi-generational saga of gratitude to our Vietnam veterans. Later, Laura found this thoughtful article about Huong and Thao, which describes them both as “a living example of the good that came out of the Vietnam War.”
Laura has also consistently asked to remain anonymous and that attention be cast on veterans themselves. I’ve abided her request but now feel compelled to thank her publicly for her work, not only on behalf of the VBC but all veterans.
Laura Nigro has done more than distribute a magazine. She has extended the Veterans Breakfast Club’s mission by hand, reaching hundreds of veterans—many Vietnam-era and older—who might never attend a livestream or write a memoir, but who will read, reflect, and remember.
She has done this quietly and consistently in service to a Marine whose voice she continues to carry forward.
The Veterans Breakfast Club is deeply grateful to Laura Nigro, to John Leo Barry, USMC (1960–1966), and to every veteran whose story found its way into new hands because she took the time to show up.
