The modern era of the military, beginning with the Vietnamese Conflict and stretching through the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts, is so far sparsely represented, but we are acquiring as we can.
The Vietnam era was a fertile time for literature, and our collections represent that. The Peter Howard Vietnam library of 433 volumes, part of the 1700 volumes on this topic in the collection. The Bruce McAllister papers and Tim O’Brien papers are manuscript literary collections, while the Mark A. Olsen letters are letters and photographs of a local man who served in the Air Force. We also have an allied safe-conduct pass – one of millions dropped by aircraft or fired from specially-made artillery shells, promising fair treatment to surrendering Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.
More recently, the military is represented by the Joseph Jacobson militaria, consisting of uniforms and items collected during the 1st Gulf War. In the more recent conflicts, there is currently not as much material, M. T. Reiten donated a cheat sheet of commonly used phrases from his time in Afghanistan; while John Eppler and John Glenn have donated a number of digital videos.
Also included are art books such as The Face of War (PR6068.A36 F26 1999 Art)
