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 in Houston, PA, for a FREE VBC storytelling event where you’ll meet a remarkable collection of people, each with a story to tell.
Our breakfast in Houston PA, is free and everyone is welcome to join us. Our veteran attendees can range from WWII and Korean War through the Post-9/11 era. The program is fast-moving and wide-ranging with lots of participation.
We meet at the Chartiers Township Community Center (2013 Community Drive Houston, PA 15342) We show photos of veterans on the screen 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 betty@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 sponsor: UPMC for Life
Helicopters played an indispensable role in the Vietnam War, carrying troops and supplies, scouting enemy positions, providing fire support, evacuating the wounded, and giving commanders unprecedented mobility over some of the most difficult terrain in the world.
For Helicopter Pilots in Vietnam, Part II, we welcome back Gil Ferrey along with four more Army aviation veterans whose experiences span several aircraft, missions, and eras of the war.
Jim Stein flew the UH-1 Huey during his first tour in Vietnam and the OH-6 Cayuse “Loach” during his second. He was shot down ten times and lost a leg during his service.
Ed Strazzini, a retired lieutenant colonel, flew Huey gunships and troop-carrying “slicks,” as well as the CH-54 Tarhe heavy-lift helicopter during his second tour in Vietnam.
Bill Neuman flew Hueys in Vietnam and was wounded in action. He later continued his service with the California National Guard, flying both Hueys and CH-47 Chinooks.
Al Doucette served as a crew chief on the H-21 Shawnee in 1961 before returning to Vietnam as a Huey pilot with the 176th Assault Helicopter Company.
Gil Ferrey returns to share more about his service with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the “Blackhorse,” including his experiences flying OH-23 helicopters on command-and-control missions in Vietnam.
If you flew helicopters in Vietnam, we especially invite you to join us, share your own experiences, and take part in the conversation.
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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.
