William Broyles, Jr.
William Broyles, Jr., the acclaimed journalist, author, magazine editor, and screenwriter, who served a tour of duty as a 1st Marine Division lieutenant in the Vietnam War in 1969-70, will deliver the Keynote Speech at the Opening Ceremonies on Monday morning, August 6. A former Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, he taught Philosophy and Political Science at the Naval Academy in Annapolis after coming home from the war, and then launched his journalism career. He was the founding editor of Texas Monthly magazine in 1972, and later the editor of Newsweek magazine.
In 1984, he became one of first American war veterans to return in Vietnam, a trip that resulted in his pioneering 1986 book, Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace. Two years later Bill, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, co-created the groundbreaking ABC TV Vietnam War dramatic series, China Beach. He also wrote or co-wrote several episodes for the series over its four-season run.
He then began writing screenplays for—among many other Hollywood movies—Apollo 13, Cast Away, Planet of the Apes, Polar Express, and Jarhead. He is one of the featured on-screen contributors to the 2025 Apple TV docuseries, Vietnam: The War That Changed America.
Doug Bradley
Doug Bradley, an author, longtime veterans’ advocate, and college instructor, who was drafted into the Army in March 1970, not long after he graduated from college, and served a tour of duty in Vietnam as an information specialist operating out USARV Headquarters in Long Binh, will receive the VVA Excellence in the Arts Award at the Saturday Night Awards Banquet.
After getting an MA at Washington State University Doug moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he helped set up Vets House, a community-based service center for Vietnam War veterans. For the next 30-plus years, he worked for the University of Wisconsin in communications, media and public relations. During that time Doug, a life member of VVA, and UW-Professor Craig Werner taught a highly popular course, “The U. S. in Vietnam: Music, Media, and Mayhem.” Today he is the Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus at UW’s College of Letters & Science.
Doug has written four books dealing with war: DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle; Who’ll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America; and the acclaimed We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, which he co-wrote with Craig Werner, and which Rolling Stone named Best Music Book of 2015. His latest book is a music-based memoir, The Tracks of My Years.
Dan Lauria
Dan Lauria, the acclaimed television, film, and stage actor best known for his role as Jack Arnold in the Emmy Award-winning TV series, The Wonder Years, will receive the Excellence in the Arts Award at the Saturday night Awards Banquet. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1970, volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and put in a tour of duty aboard a Navy helicopter assault ship in the South China Sea in 1972, including a short time as a platoon commander.
In addition to appearing in The Wonder Years’ six seasons, Dan Lauria has been in more than 70 other TV shows and movies, including This Is Us, Shameless, Sullivan and Sons (for three seasons), Gray’s Anatomy, Cagney and Lacy, Growing Pains, and L.A. Law. He has acted in scores of films, including Without a Trace, Independence Day, and Stakeout. And he’s performed, written, or directed more than 50 stage productions. One highlight was his starring role as the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi during the Broadway run of the play, Lombardi.
A longtime veterans’ advocate, Dan Lauria is a board member of the National Veterans Foundation in Los Angeles, an honorary board member of Feed Our Vets, and served for a year as a VA celebrity hospital visitor.
Joe Namath
Joe Namath, the famed Super Bowl-winning NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, will receive the President’s Award for Supporting the Troops in Vietnam. The award was presented to him in March, and his moving acceptance speech will be shown at the Saturday night Awards Banquet.
The award honors Namath’s trip to visit wounded Vietnam War veterans in military hospitals in Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Hawaii within days after he led the New York Jets to a 16-7 victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff, who served as a U.S. Army advisor to the 7th Vietnamese Infantry Division in the Delta in South Vietnam, and is among the most honored and accomplished Vietnam War veteran writers, will receive the Excellence in the Arts Award at the Saturday night Awards Banquet. He is best known for his award-winning memoir, This Boy’s Life, which later was a Hollywood movie starring Robert De Nero and Leonardo DiCaprio; his short stories; and his Vietnam War memoir, In Pharoah’s Army.
One of his four short story collections, The Barracks Thief, won a PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. And he received a National Medal of Arts in 2015.
Tobias Wolff taught writing at Syracuse University from 1980 to 1997. He is professor emeritus in the Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, where he has taught creative writing and English since 1997. He also served as the director of Stanford’s famed Creative Writing program from 2000-2002.