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!
Our Veterans Breakfast Club’s Open Conversation gathers veterans, military family members, history buffs, and interested people of all sorts together in a Zoom room without an agenda. We then talk for 90 minutes.
Once a month, we dispense with the scheduled guest and prepared program and turn the microphone over to the people who show up. Bring a story, a question, a memory, something you’ve been thinking about, or simply your curiosity. You never quite know where the conversation will go.
A question about a veteran’s hat might lead to a discussion about coming home from Vietnam and what “thank you for your service” means. A conversation about flying drones can become a debate about technology, combat, and moral responsibility. Someone might introduce a veteran we’ve never met before, pull out an old photograph, remember a friend who has died, recommend a book, ask how things were done in the military 50 years ago, or raise a question that sends the whole group down an unexpected historical rabbit hole.
There is no featured guest and no predetermined topic. We all create the program as we go. Veterans from different branches, generations, ranks, specialties, and eras compare experiences and discover where they overlap—and where they don’t. Non-veterans ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask. Sometimes the conversation is serious. Sometimes it’s funny. Often one story triggers another, and we wind up someplace none of us expected when the evening began.
You don’t need to be a veteran to participate, and you don’t need to have a story ready. Some people come to talk. Others come to ask questions. And some simply come to listen.
Join us Monday, November 2 at 7:00pm ET on Zoom, Facebook, or YouTube and be part of the conversation!
Maurice L. “Chipp” Naylon IV served nine years as a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer. In 2014–2015, he deployed to Afghanistan as a combat advisor and operations officer working with soldiers from the Republic of Georgia assigned to help defend Bagram Airfield. By then, America had been at war in Afghanistan for more than thirteen years, and Washington was preparing to declare an “end to combat operations.” On the ground, however, Naylon and his Marines were still leaving the wire, hunting for rocket teams and bomb makers, encountering IEDs, and trying to protect one of the largest American bases in the country.
Naylon tells that story in his book The New Ministry of Truth: Combat Advisors in Afghanistan and America’s Great Betrayal. It is less a conventional combat memoir than an account of the widening gap he saw between policy and reality—and of what that gap meant for the servicemembers ordered to carry out the mission.
Naylon’s deployment also offers an unusual window into the complicated coalition war in Afghanistan. His small team of Marines advised a Georgian infantry battalion whose soldiers had their own reasons for being there, while working alongside Afghan National Army forces and operating under an American chain of command. Success depended not simply on firepower but on relationships, trust, cultural understanding, intelligence, and rules of engagement that Naylon increasingly believed prevented his Marines from confronting threats before those threats confronted them.
One phrase captures his larger criticism of the war: “We weren’t in Afghanistan for 20 years. We were in Afghanistan for one year, 20 times.” Units rotated in and out, knowledge disappeared, missions changed, and the people arriving often had to rediscover lessons learned by those who had come before them.
Yet Naylon’s story isn’t simply one of anger or disillusionment. He remains intensely proud of the Marines he served with and of the Georgian soldiers they trained and advised. During seven months in Afghanistan, he watched their combined force develop from struggling with basic patrols into conducting complex nighttime operations with Afghan and American forces. That pride in what servicemembers accomplished at the tactical level exists alongside a much harder question about the larger war: What did those accomplishments ultimately add up to?
Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for a candid conversation with Chipp Naylon about advising foreign troops, defending Bagram, restrictive rules of engagement, leadership and loyalty, the frustrations of coalition warfare, and the strange experience of fighting a war that officials back home were declaring over. We’ll also talk about the fall of Afghanistan in 2021 and the question that runs throughout Naylon’s book and the experiences of so many Afghanistan veterans: What did our service there mean?
Our Veterans Breakfast Club’s Open Conversation gathers veterans, military family members, history buffs, and interested people of all sorts together in a Zoom room without an agenda. We then talk for 90 minutes.
Once a month, we dispense with the scheduled guest and prepared program and turn the microphone over to the people who show up. Bring a story, a question, a memory, something you’ve been thinking about, or simply your curiosity. You never quite know where the conversation will go.
A question about a veteran’s hat might lead to a discussion about coming home from Vietnam and what “thank you for your service” means. A conversation about flying drones can become a debate about technology, combat, and moral responsibility. Someone might introduce a veteran we’ve never met before, pull out an old photograph, remember a friend who has died, recommend a book, ask how things were done in the military 50 years ago, or raise a question that sends the whole group down an unexpected historical rabbit hole.
There is no featured guest and no predetermined topic. We all create the program as we go. Veterans from different branches, generations, ranks, specialties, and eras compare experiences and discover where they overlap—and where they don’t. Non-veterans ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask. Sometimes the conversation is serious. Sometimes it’s funny. Often one story triggers another, and we wind up someplace none of us expected when the evening began.
You don’t need to be a veteran to participate, and you don’t need to have a story ready. Some people come to talk. Others come to ask questions. And some simply come to listen.
Join us Monday, November 2 at 7:00pm ET on Zoom, Facebook, or YouTube and be part of the conversation!
Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for a special Book Release Edition of VBC Live celebrating the publication of the new, updated edition of Consequences: An Intelligence Officer’s War by former Air Force counterintelligence officer David Grantham.
This event also marks the launch of VBC Books, the Veterans Breakfast Club’s new publishing imprint created in partnership with Blue Ear Books. We couldn’t imagine a more fitting first title.
In 2006, David Grantham entered Iraq as a young counterintelligence officer with the elite Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Fresh out of training, he found himself operating in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and eventually at Camp Bucca—the sprawling American detention facility that would later become known as the incubator of ISIS. His mission was not to fight on the front lines, but to gather intelligence, recruit sources, protect American forces, and understand an increasingly chaotic battlefield where every decision carried unforeseen consequences.
Written as narrative nonfiction, Consequences offers a rare, ground-level view of intelligence work during the Iraq War. Rather than focusing on secret gadgets or Hollywood-style espionage, Grantham reveals the patient, uncertain, and deeply human work of earning trust, weighing evidence, and making decisions when lives—and history—hang in the balance. Reviewers have praised the book for opening a window into a world few Americans ever see and for exploring how choices made during wartime can echo for decades.
During this special conversation, David will discuss:
- What counterintelligence officers actually do in wartime
- The hidden intelligence battle behind the Iraq War
- Camp Bucca, Iran’s growing influence, and the rise of ISIS
- The burden of making life-and-death decisions with incomplete information
- Why he decided to tell this story—and what he learned by writing it
We’ll also celebrate the beginning of VBC Books and discuss why preserving veterans’ stories in print remains one of the Veterans Breakfast Club’s most important missions.
Whether you’re interested in military history, intelligence, the Global War on Terror, or simply a remarkable personal story told with honesty and humility, this promises to be an unforgettable evening.
Come help us celebrate the launch of a new book—and a new chapter in the Veterans Breakfast Club’s mission to preserve, publish, and share veterans’ stories.
What happens when a group of young men enters U.S. Air Force pilot training at the dawn of the 1960s—and earns its wings just as the Cold War is entering one of its most dangerous periods?
On November 16, the Veterans Breakfast Club hosts a special two-hour virtual reunion of U.S. Air Force Pilot Training Class 62A, bringing together members of an extraordinary group of aviators whose careers would span the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and some of the most consequential chapters in modern Air Force history.
And this won’t be an ordinary panel discussion.
Nor is Class 62A an ordinary reunion group. Its members trained at different bases all over the country under the same class designation. While other pilot-training reunions have generally brought together men who trained at one particular base, Class 62A’s reunions have brought together classmates from all five primary training bases and their subsequent six basic training bases—as one class. To our knowledge, Class 62A is the only pilot-training class in USAF history to have held repeated reunions that include all pilots who graduated from all bases in the year 1961.
Thanks largely to the remarkable work of Shana Intille Wilcox, volunteer historian for Class 62A, we expect dozens of members of the class to join us online from around the country—perhaps 40 or more—for what will be part reunion, part oral history, and part aviation storytelling marathon.
Shana’s connection to the class is personal. Her father, Lt. Col. Michael Intille, was a member of 62A, and in 2021 his fellow pilots made her an honorary member of the class. Since then, she has helped document its history, preserve its stories, and keep alive the friendships formed more than six decades ago. Her work has helped make this unusual VBC gathering possible.
From Pilot Training to Vietnam and the Cold War
The men of Class 62A came from remarkably different backgrounds and trained at five different bases, progressing from civilian contract flying schools into advanced Air Force jet training. After earning their wings, they scattered across the Air Force and around the world.
Collectively, they flew an astonishing range of aircraft and missions: F-102 interceptors, F-4 Phantoms, F-105 Thunderchiefs, Wild Weasels, F-15s, F-16s, A-7s, C-123s, C-133s, C-141s, AC-130 gunships, O-1 Bird Dogs, HH-3 and HH-53 rescue helicopters, and more.
Their stories include combat over North Vietnam, desperate low-fuel landings, carrier operations, forward air control, airlift emergencies, gunship missions, search-and-rescue operations, and the experience of a classmate shot down and held as a prisoner of war for more than six years.
We’ll hear from pilots themselves as well as family members preserving the stories of classmates who have taken their final flight.
Among the stories we hope to explore:
- Col. Cliff Tatum, who flew the F-102, F-4, F-84F, and Navy A-7E and completed 152 carrier landings—including 62 at night—during the final carrier cruise of the Vietnam War.
- Col. David Tippett, a Vietnam combat veteran who flew the F-102, F-4, F-4 Wild Weasel, and F-16 and later commanded an F-16 wing.
- Col. Rod Gunn, recalling an F-4 mission over North Vietnam involving enemy defenses, a pursuing MiG-17, and a dangerously low-fuel return.
- Brig. Gen. Dan Sherlock, whose career took him from the F-102 and F-4 to the F-15 and F-16 and included more than 200 combat missions.
- The story of Col. Murphy Neal Jones, shot down in an F-105 and held as a POW for more than six years before returning home and resuming his Air Force flying career.
- Capt. Bob White, gravely wounded while flying an O-1 Bird Dog yet continuing to direct his aircraft’s return to base.
- Col. William “Bill” Kehler, whose five Vietnam combat tours ranged from C-123 airlift operations to AC-130 gunships.
- Col. Bob Horne, recounting a six-hour HH-53 rescue mission over Laos in 1969.
- Col. Bruce Ware, whose HH-3E crew rescued Charles Lindbergh and 45 others from an isolated jungle ridge in the Philippines in 1972.
- Col. John Attebury, whose 32-year Air Force career included Vietnam service and more than 20,000 flying hours. Now 91, he still builds and flies airplanes and helps fellow members of Class 62A remain in the air.
Shana will also share the story of her father, Lt. Col. Michael Intille, including a harrowing C-133 emergency and the larger story of how the U.S. Air Force gave a young man from South Philadelphia opportunities that would transform his life and his family for generations.
Five Training Bases, One Class
Perhaps the most remarkable story is Class 62A itself.
“62A” began as an administrative designation shared by men training at different locations—not as one group that had all trained together. In 2001, Michael Intille and John Attebury helped turn that shared designation into a lasting community, bringing together approximately 250 classmates from all five primary training bases for a reunion in Colorado Springs.
Reunions every two years since have continued that tradition: bringing the separate training groups together, remembering classmates who have taken their final flight, and strengthening friendships across the entire class. That breadth—and its continuity over a quarter century—is the distinction that sets Class 62A apart from the hundreds of other USAF pilot-training classes.
This special two-hour Veterans Breakfast Club program will bring that reunion online. We’ll hear the featured stories, look at photographs and aircraft from the class’s history, invite other members of 62A to join the conversation, and take questions from our live audience.
It is a chance not simply to hear about Air Force history, but to hear it from the people who lived it—and to watch a remarkable group of old friends come together once again.
Join us for this special USAF Pilot Training Class 62A Virtual Reunion, November 19, live with the Veterans Breakfast Club.
