MOVIE NIGHT: APOCALYPSE NOW

Grab some popcorn and a seat in your favorite chair, and join us for a Movie Night and Virtual Discussion with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Staff. While we can’t all be together, we can share discussion on major motion pictures that deal with the hardships, humor, and horrors of combat. For this virtual discussion, we will look at the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, starring Martin Sheen, Marlin Brando, Robert Duvall, and Laurence Fishburne. In this gripping and often surreal Vietnam War tale, an Army Captain is sent upriver to terminate the command of a once-revered Colonel. This event may not be suitable for younger audiences as this film contains graphic war violence, language, and is of a mature subject matter. Your mission is to watch the movie, which is available from most libraries or on streaming services, while thinking about the discussion questions we will provide you. On October 30th, at 7:00 pm we’ll all meet via Zoom for a discussion led by museum staff. We will cover themes such as conflict, politics, pop culture, the military, and movie-making. After you register, we will email you the discussion questions and a link to join the virtual discussion via Zoom. This event is free and open to the public. REGISTER Sponsored by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation

Free

Book Talk – The Party Dolls: The True, Tragic Story of Two Americans’ Attempted Escape from a 1969 Hanoi POW Camp (Independently Published, 2021)

Online WI, United States

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum welcomes George Hayward to introduce his newest work, The Party Dolls. This story of escape from a Hanoi prisoner of war camp details the horrors of being a POW in Vietnam and the often tragic consequences faced by those who try to escape. George will talk about this book, the research and the interviews he conducted, and the torment these two men endured for their actions. The event is free and open to the public.  This event is suitable for mature audiences. Program funding made possible by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation through the generous support of Generac Power Systems.  REGISTER HERE

Free

Book Talk with Michael Hankins – Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia

Online WI, United States

Michael Hankins will be joining us to talk about his newest work, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia, which explores the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. REGISTER HERE This program is free and suitable for all ages. Event sponsored by The Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation with support for the Foundation from Generac Power Systems.

Free

Mess Night

Wisconsin Veterans Museum 30 W. Mifflin St, Madison, WI, United States

Please join us for our quarterly dinner series with guest Gregory A. Daddis, who is the Director of the Center for War and Society and the USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History. He will be speaking on his 2020 book, Pulp Vietnam : War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines.

Distinguished Lecture Series: An Army Afire

Pyle Center 702 Langdon, Madison, Wisconsin

Beth Bailey of the University of Kansas will lecture on her book, “An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era” Thursday, April 4th at 4:00 pm Pyle Center Room 232 on the UW-Madison Campus Even as US troops fought in Vietnam, Black and white soldiers battled each other in barracks and bars, with violence spilling into the streets of towns and cities in the United States and around the world. By the late 1960s, key Army leaders had begun to worry that racial conflict undermined the Army’s ability to defend the nation. In their attempts to solve “the problem of race,” Army leaders were surprisingly creative, even willing to challenge military principles of discipline, order, hierarchy, and authority. Confronting what some saw as an existential threat, the fundamentally conservative institution of the US Army took strikingly progressive actions, though in service of a conservative goal. This lecture is presented by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Free