The Best of the Best

2024 Leadership Conference in Reno draws rave reviews

BY Marc Leepson

It was all but unanimous. When they stepped up to the microphone at the Open Mic portion of the Closing Ceremonies of the National Leadership & Education Conference in Reno on Saturday morning, August 24, nearly everyone had high words of praise for what had transpired in the last four days of seminars, presentations, training sessions, and other activities.

“Every session I went to was phenomenal,” said one attendee. “I’ve been to a lot of conferences,” said another, “but this one is the best I’ve attended in many years—I’d say, the ‘best of the best.’”

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

The Leadership Conference, held in concert with the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America, drew 378 VVA and AVVA registrants. It officially kicked off with the Opening Ceremonies on Wednesday morning at the Conference venue, the Silver Legacy Hotel (and Casino) when, before a packed room of conference attendees and guests, the Color Guard from Reno’s Sierra Nevada Chapter 989 flawlessly presented the Colors and later the service flags.

VVA Board Member Steve Williams sang a robust version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” after which two hotel employees who served in the military led the room in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. After welcoming remarks from VVA President Jack McManus, attendees heard from Lee Jackson, the Nevada State Council president, AVVA President Sharon Hobbs, and Thomas Talamante, the recently appointed head of the VA’s Sierra Nevada Health Care Systems and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

Then came a Conference highlight: the Keynote speech by Brittanie Ngo, a civilian employee at Edwards Air Force Base in California who escaped Saigon with her family in 1975. A strong supporter of American active-duty military and military veterans, she said she has a special place in her heart for Vietnam War veterans.

In a passionate address, Ngo spoke of her joy at growing up in the U.S.A. and becoming an American citizen, and how “the legacy of warfighters, their family members, and supporters here today” played a big part in it. “Today and always, I do not forget the sacrifices that were made by U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and the compassion of Americans who enabled the escape and livelihood of so many refugees.”

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

It is important, she went on to say, that society is reminded to honor “our military brothers and sisters, American and ARVN, accounted for and missing, past and present. As long as I breathe, I never want their sacrifices to be forgotten.”

There “is not a day that goes by,” she said, that American Vietnam War veterans “are not in my thoughts. I agonize over the youth that you will never recapture, the comrades you have lost, and the things you cannot unsee. When the memories rear their heads, when the sleepless nights haunt you, when you question the meaning of it all, know that I am with you always.”

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

The Conference’s seminars, 25 of them to be precise, began after the Opening Ceremonies, along with a joint VVA/VA Claims Clinic that offered help to veterans filing VA claims, as well as four VSO Advanced Training sessions. All were well-attended.

The offerings included an AVVA-sponsored seminar on Spousal and Survivor Benefits; a review of the PACT Act; a VVA Government Affairs seminar on How to Become an Effective Legislative Advocate; a Veterans Health Administration presentation on the VHA Caregiver Support Program; the VVA PTSD/Substance Abuse Committee’s seminar on Coping with Aging Stressors; and a presentation by Dr. Molly McGaughey, a geriatric specialist at the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, N.C.

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

At the Saturday night Awards Banquet, VVA Vice President Tom Burke presented Dr. McGaughey with an honorary VVA life membership in recognition of her work with Vietnam War veterans and their families, which went above and beyond.

Former VVA Vice President Jack Devine, the chair of the newly formed VVA Legacy Task Force, led a presentation on Saturday morning focusing on the group’s upcoming effort to draw up a plan that would tell VVA’s story and to create a mechanism to professionally archive the organization’s chapter, state council, and national records and achievements.

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

After hearing input from many who attended the session, Devine said that the task force will be creating a white paper that will go to all VVA chapters to help them start the process of preserving their records and recording the war and post-war stories of their members.

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

The Conference ended with the Awards Banquet, emceed with humor and aplomb by Troy Evans, the Vietnam War veteran, VVA life member, and veteran Hollywood actor. The evening’s awards went to former Pan Am stewardess Clare Christiansen, who volunteered to serve on R&R flights into and out of Vietnam from 1966-68; Bill McCloud, a VVA life member, poet, Rogers University history professor, and the author of the classic book, What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?; and Jan Daley, the actress and singer who performed on the 1971 Bob Hope Show in Vietnam.

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

Jan Daley ended the evening by once again entertaining “the troops” with a soaring rendition of “God Bless America.”

Ken Williamson/VVA Veteran

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010