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 the Veterans Breakfast Club for a conversation with retired Army Colonel Frank Hancock, commander of 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during Operation Desert Storm, about his remarkable new book, Operation Desert Storm: How Two Young Intelligence Analysts and an Infantry Battalion Changed the War in Iraq.
At the heart of the book is an extraordinary story that has remained untold for more than three decades. Just 48 hours before the 101st Airborne launched the largest helicopter air assault in American military history, two young intelligence soldiers—Captain Jose Delgado and Sergeant Jesus Gonzalez—discovered a critical flaw in the division’s battle plan that had escaped every higher headquarters. They identified an Iraqi bunker-and-trench complex directly in the landing zone of the lead assault company. Their discovery forced commanders to revise the plan at the last minute and may well have prevented a devastating disaster.
That dramatic episode opens the door to a much larger story. Hancock takes us inside General Norman Schwarzkopf’s bold “Hail Mary” offensive, which sent the 101st Airborne deep into Iraq to sever the Euphrates Valley in one of the most ambitious operational maneuvers undertaken by the U.S. military since the Inchon landing during the Korean War. He explains how the division planned and executed the largest helicopter air assault in U.S. history, what worked, what nearly went wrong, and why the operation became a defining moment in modern American warfare.
Drawing on recollections from soldiers throughout the battalion—from privates to colonels—Hancock reconstructs the operation from every level of command. Along the way, he also explores a larger question: How did the U.S. Army recover from Vietnam? Desert Storm showcased an Army that had spent nearly two decades studying its failures, rebuilding its doctrine, embracing new technologies, and developing leaders capable of executing extraordinarily complex operations. The campaign’s stunning success did not happen by accident—it was the product of lessons painfully learned after Vietnam.
As always, we’ll leave plenty of time for audience questions, comments, and stories. Veterans, family members, and all who wish to learn are warmly welcome.
Join us for a FREE VBC breakfast in Unity Township at the American Legion Post 982 (158 American Legion Rd, Latrobe, PA 15650) on July 15 at 8:30am. Please RSVP for this free breakfast event by calling 412-623-9029 or emailing betty@veteransbreakfastclub.org.
Everyone is welcome, veterans and non-veterans, and the breakfast will be provided for free.
We plan our usual fast-moving and wide-ranging program with lots of participation. We’ll have veterans of various ages and branches of service sharing their stories of service.
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!
Please consider sponsoring this event!
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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.
