The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service. We’re the place where veterans can share what they’ve seen and done—and where everyone can listen and learn.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Join us at Seven Oaks Country Club in Beaver, PA for a Veterans Breakfast Club storytelling breakfast on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, from 8:30–10:30am—a warm, come-as-you-are morning of coffee, buffet breakfast, and true stories of military service.
This year, every VBC event is now completely free and open to the public. That means no charge for breakfast. But we do need a reservation, so please let us know you’re coming. Then, take a seat among veterans, family members, and neighbors who want to listen, learn, and connect.
If you’ve never been to a VBC event, the format is simple: we gather for a casual meal, then veterans (of any era and any branch) share short, first-person stories—funny, tough, surprising, and often unforgettable. You don’t have to be a veteran to attend. And you don’t have to speak to belong. Some people come to tell a story they’ve carried for years; others come because they want to understand what service really means beyond the headlines.
Whether you’re a veteran, related to one, or simply grateful and curious, this is a morning to be in the same room together—good food, good company, and the kind of storytelling that sticks with you long after the plates are cleared.
RSVP by calling 412-623-9029 or emailing betty@veteransbreakfastclub.org. Please make sure to RSVP for events at least two days in advance.
During World War II, the United States built 2,710 Liberty ships to move the cargo needed to fight a global war. They were plain, inexpensive, and often called “ugly ducklings,” but without them the Allied victory would have been impossible.
Join the Veterans Breakfast Club as Glenn Flickinger welcomes award-winning journalist and author Doug Most to discuss his acclaimed new book, Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War.
Doug tells the remarkable story of how Franklin Roosevelt, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, naval architects, welders, engineers, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans created one of the greatest industrial achievements in history. In just a few short years, American shipyards transformed shipbuilding from a process measured in months into one measured in weeks—and sometimes even days. Along the way, women, African Americans, migrants from across the country, and first-time shipbuilders became part of an extraordinary workforce that helped supply Allied armies around the globe.
We’ll talk about why Liberty ships mattered so much, how Henry Kaiser’s innovative shipyards changed manufacturing forever, and how America’s race to outproduce German U-boats became one of the great untold stories of World War II. Just as importantly, we’ll remember the hundreds of thousands of workers—many of them building ships for the first time—whose efforts transformed the United States into the Arsenal of Democracy and helped win the war.
The Veterans Breakfast Club creates communities of listening around veterans and their stories to connect, educate, heal, and inspire.
#LibertyShips #WorldWarII #WWII #MerchantMarine #HenryKaiser #DougMost #MilitaryHistory #NavalHistory #GreatestGeneration #VeteransBreakfastClub #ArsenalOfDemocracy #HomeFront #History #WW2History
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VBC programs connect and heal,
educate and inspire.
Everyone is always welcome.
The Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC) is the nation’s premier non-profit for connecting veterans with their fellow Americans through inspiring stories of service.
Our goal is to build a nation that understands and values the experiences of our military veterans so that every day is Veterans Day.
We do this by bringing together–in-person and online–men and women from all walks of life, all ages and eras, and every branch of service to talk about what they’ve seen and done. We want to hear how people’s military service has shaped them. “Every Veteran Has a Story” is our slogan. We want to hear every one.
We share the stories we hear in our weekly VBC Bulletin email newsletter and our quarterly VBC Magazine. We also record a weekly podcast, The Scuttlebutt, about military culture from the people who lived it.
We do all this because we believe the best way to thank a Veteran is to listen.
Listening is what the VBC has been doing for the past 15 years, when we held our first small event outside of Pittsburgh. Since then, we’ve held over 1,000 programs in-person and online and have welcomed over 20,000 different people at our events, Veterans and non-Veterans coming together to listen.
We value every veteran’s experience, no matter who they are or when or how they served. We’ve seen up close the power of storytelling, as the memories shared at VBC events connect, heal, educate, and inspire an ever-expanding circle of listeners.
THE VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT
Preserving veterans’ stories so that this living history is never forgotten.
We pair passionate VBC volunteers with military veterans for one-on-one oral history interviews over Zoom. If you are a veteran, or you know a veteran, who would be interested in sharing his or her story with us, let us know. If you are someone interested in conducting these interviews, please reach out!
At any given event, you might hear from the newest members of Space Force to a 101-year-old World War II veteran.
We’ve welcomed Tin Can Sailors and Montford Point Marines, Vietnam Sky Soldiers and Cold War intelligence officers. We’ve heard stories from the Horn of Africa to Antarctica, the Bering Sea to Diego Garcia, and all points in between.
LORAN Coast Guardsmen and Radar Station Airmen have told us about serving in some of the most remote places on earth.
Korean War veterans have borne witness to their “forgotten war.”
Other “forgotten warriors” shared their memories of Beirut, Grenada, and Mogadishu.
Some of the first women authorized for combat shared stories of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of the Purple Hearts they received.
