VVAW Archive Update

By Meg Miner

The VVAW Archive Project wants to encourage members to plan for the future of whatever they have collected about their time in service and their activities as members. The National Office (NO) started sending VVAW's official publications and records of events and meetings to the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) in the late 1970s.

This article brings you up to date on recent activities of NO staff to make sure as complete a record as possible is preserved for the future. We also want you to know how you can help secure your group's legacy and actions you can take to preserve your own.

If you have memorabilia of your involvement in VVAW we want to hear from you! Contact VVAW at vvaw@vvaw.org.

Service-related material from members cannot be part of VVAW's collections at WHS unless it connects directly to VVAW activities. We have identified other ways VVAW members can save their personal photos, letters, journals, or artifacts from events and actions that took place prior to membership.

Some state archives or local historical societies will take these kinds of materials, but not all of them are funded and equipped to handle personal mementos. If you are a resident of Wisconsin you can contact:

Jonathan Nelson
Collection Development Archivist
Wisconsin Historical Society
816 State St.
Madison, WI 53706-1482
608-264-6447

There is another archive that is devoted to telling the story of every perspective involved in the Vietnam War: The Vietnam Center and Archives (VNCA) at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The Vietnam Center seeks to provide a forum for all points of view and for all topics relating to Indochina, particularly, but not limited to, the American military involvement there. They seek to preserve the records of US veterans, who served in Southeast Asia as well as civilians active on the home front including the anti-war movement. In addition to its mission of collecting these materials, the Vietnam Archive currently administers two projects, the Oral History Project and the Virtual Vietnam Archive (www.vietnam.ttu.edu/general). The Vietnam Center can be contacted at:

Amy K. Mondt, CA
Associate Director
The Vietnam Archive
2805 15th Street
Lubbock, TX 79409
806-742-9010 (phone)
806-742-0496 (fax)

Please make sure that the legacy of VVAW is preserved. Make plans today, so that this important part of history does end up discarded and in a dumpster. Contact us today.

Meg Miner is a Gulf-era veteran, member of VVAW and VFP, and an archivist.