Veterans' Day
Webcasts
The Library of Congress has several free webcasts available concerning veterans. Below, you will find a listing of the webcasts and their speakers, event dates, running times and descriptions. The webcasts hosted by the Library of Congress require RealPlayer to view. If you do not have RealPlayer installed on your computer, you can download it for free from Real's web site.
The Bonus Army: An American Epic
Speakers: Paul Dickson and Thomas Allen
Event Date: 06/22/2005
Running Time: 54 minutes
Paul Dickson and Thomas Allen presented a talk about their book, the compelling story of World War I veterans whose demands for better treatment became the Bonus Army March. The bonus was finally paid in 1936, but its ultimate importance lay in paving the way for the passage of the G.I. Bill of Rights on June 22, 1944. Dickson and Allen's book talk marks the 61st anniversary of that bill's passage.
War's End: Eyewitness to History, Part 1
Speakers: Benjamin Ferencz and others
Event Date: 05/26/2005
Running Time: 130 minutes
Benjamin Ferencz, an Army officer who served as prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, delivered the keynote address for the symposium, which commemorated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Tom Wiener, historian for the Veterans History Project and compiler of the recently published book "Voices of War," moderated the first panel of eyewitnesses to events at the end of the war. Panelists were Art Buchwald, John Dolibois, Yeiichi "Kelly" Kuwayama, and John Glusman.
War's End: Eyewitness to History, Part 2
Speaker: Prosser Gifford
Event Date: 05/26/2005
Running Time: 86 minutes
The second panel of this event, which commemorated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, focused on an historical perspective of the events surrounding the end of the war and was moderated by Prosser Gifford, Director of Scholarly Programs at the Library of Congress. Panelists included Klaus Larres, James Hershberg, Jon Meacham, Elizabeth B. White and Peter Black.
In Country: The Vietnam War, 30 Years After
Speakers: Gen. Julius Becton Jr., Bernard Kalb, Stanley Karnow and Daun van Ee
Event Date: 05/04/2005
Running Time: 118 minutes
The Veterans History Project hosted a symposium which included General Julius Becton, Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.), Vietnam veteran and educator; Bernard Kalb, a veteran journalist, author and founding anchor on the weekly CNN program Reliable Sources; Stanley Karnow, World War II veteran, journalists and author of "Vietnam: A History;" and panelist/moderator, Dr. Daun van Ee of the Library of Congress Manuscript Division and Vietnam veteran and specialist in 20th century military history. The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center is a nationwide volunteer effort to collect and preserve oral histories from America's war veterans. The collection is housed at the Library of Congress. To date the archive has received more than 33,000 individual submissions.
