Vietnam War Veterans: Resources in the Veterans History Project
With over 25,000 personal narratives documenting the personal experiences of veterans of the Vietnam War available for research, VHP collections are a rich resource for understanding the diverse experiences of servicemembers during this conflict.
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Author:
Nathan Cross, Archivist, Veterans History Project
Editor:
Elizabeth Fulford, Program Specialist, Veterans History Project
Created: November 8, 2023
Last Updated: November 8, 2023
The Veterans History Project (VHP) of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American military veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of military service.
Introduction
Comprised of oral histories, photographs, correspondence, journals, military documents, memoirs, and more, Veterans History Project (VHP) collections document the personal stories of individual veterans. With more than 25,000 collections from Vietnam veterans in the VHP archives, there is a broad diversity of experiences and personal backgrounds represented. This guide provides tips and strategies for effective searching of VHP's collections website, along with an introduction to other VHP resources available on our website.
The documented experiences of Vietnam War veterans embody diversity in multiple ways: they represent occupational specialties that range from infantry to cooks, from mechanics to medical personnel, and everything in between. American servicemembers during the Vietnam conflict came from every possible socioeconomic and ethnic background, and that diversity will be apparent as you peruse these collections online. Reflecting American society as a whole, these veterans also express a variety of opinions on the war in Vietnam and their role in it. For a war that defies simple characterizations, VHP collections offer a window into how it was experienced and how it is remembered by those who lived it firsthand.