16. Ann Kelsey, interview conducted by Steve Maxner, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, March 27, 2001.
17. Nell Strickland, in discussion with the author, September 7, 2013.
18. Ann Kelsey, interview conducted by Steve Maxner, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, March 27, 2001.
19. Nell Strickland, in discussion with the author, September 7, 2013.
20. Ann Kelsey, interview conducted by Steve Maxner, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, March 27, 2001.
21. Oral history interview in Peter Young Collection (AFC/2001/001/66648), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
22. Letter from Ruth Rappaport to Special Services officer, February 25, 1965, RRC, USAHEC.
23. Meredith H. Lair, Armed with Abundance: Consumerism & Soldiering in the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), p. 172.
24. Request for Expendable Reading Materials, July 8, 1971, National Archives, RG 472, Special Services General Records, box 2, folder “Magazine Requests and Distribution, 1967–71”; Norman M. Camp, US Army Psychiatry in the Vietnam War: New Challenges in Extended Counterinsurgency Warfare (Washington, DC: Borden Institute, US Army Medical Department Center and School, 2014), pp. 349–52.
25. Book catalog, 1971, National Archives, RG 472, Special Services General Records, box 4, folder “SOP Field Collections.”
26. Lair, Armed with Abundance, p. 136.
27. “U.S. Army Special Services: Where the Action Is” (recruitment video), 1970, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piyqtiosYYw; Lair, Armed with Abundance, pp. 134–35.
28. Lair, Armed with Abundance, pp. 25–26. As Lair argues, these statistics greatly differ from the common narrative from popular culture of young men dying in the jungle. It is possible that recognizing the massive amount of leisure activities available in Vietnam can reframe how we view the war, without disrespecting those who served and died in combat roles and did not participate in or benefit from these other activities.
29. Summary of program meeting on “Books as Weapons,” July 12, 1996, American Library Association, Public Library Association, Armed Forces Librarian Section, American Library Association Archives, Record Group 29/2/6, box 18, folder “AFLS Board Minutes and Agenda, 1966–1967.”
30. Ann Kelsey, who served as an army librarian in Vietnam, has also conducted personal research into the history of the libraries there and has regularly participated in veterans’ events since the 1990s. She also concurs that most veterans do not remember the library system.
31. Vietnam Vets Reading Survey, conducted by author, 2013–2014.
32. Adjutant general and Special Services newsletters, Record Group 472, Special Services General Records, box 1, NARA.
33. Oral history interview in Peter Young Collection (AFC/2001/001/66648), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
34. Lair, Armed with Abun
dance, pp. 23–65.
35. Gabriel Francis Horchler, oral history interview, Gabriel Francis Horchler Collection, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
36. Janice Carney, interview conducted by Laura M. Calkin, OH0426, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, May 24, June 6, 7, and 8, 2005.
37. John Christian Worsencroft, “Salvageable Manhood: Project 100,000 and the Gendered Politics of the Vietnam War,” master’s thesis, University of Utah, 2011, http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/etd3/id/594.
38. Tom Sticht, “‘McNamara’s Moron Corps’: They Done Good After All!” August 9, 2012, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327369169_McNamara’s_Moron_Corps_They_Done_Good_After_All.
39. Email from Joe Hudson to author, January 28, 2014; Peter Young oral history, Veterans History Project, Library of Congress.
40. Email from Ann Kelsey to author, January 26, 2014.
41. Vietnam Vets Reading Survey, conducted by author, 2013–2014.
42. Keyes Beech, “U.S. Troops in Vietnam Quite Bookish,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1969, p. B4.
43. These three complete and comprehensive lists appear in the National Archives, RG 472, Special Services General Records, box 4, folder “SOP Field Collections.” Other book and magazine lists (some partial) appear in the Special Services General Records.
44. Email from Nolan Dehner to author, May 12, 2013.