The Rockbridge Historical Society is picking up in the new year right where it left off at the end of 2025 – with a focus on the Vietnam War.
The continued initiatives begun by RHS last year as part of its Virginia 250 observance – the bi-monthly book club entitled Revolutionary Books, 1776-2026, and Revolutionary Films, 1776-2026 – will offer two chances for community involvement on back-to-back nights next week.
To engage a thematic pairing of short fictional and non-fictional selections, area residents are invited to the Rockbridge Regional Library in Lexington on Tuesday, Jan. 13, at 6 p.m. for the next meeting of the Revolutionary Books club.
Attendees can explore the Vietnam-tied writings of U.S. infantryman, memoirist and novelist Tim O’Brien, author of a 1991 Pulitzer-nominated story collection “The Things They Carried”; and Civil Rights activist, preacher and philosopher the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on his 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”.
Print and audio versions of O’Brien’s anthology can be loaned by local public and university libraries, with transcripts and YouTube recordings of King’s speech readily accessed online. Pre-readings of those texts will be enriched by the screening of short interviews with the paired authors. Together, they’ll seed discussion about the complex and often contradictory aims and accounts of the war, according to RHS Executive Director Eric Wilson.
The following night, Jan. 14, also at 6 at the Lexington Library, another sampler extends RHS’ first run of Revolutionary Films 1776-2026.
After screening pivotal episodes from Ken Burns’ documentaries on the American Revolution and Vietnam War in November and December, this third gathering aims to jointly introduce and revisit a variety of feature-length movies produced across the war’s five-decade wake. Scenes from “When We Were Soldiers Once …
THE MOVIE “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson will be one of the Vietnam movies that will be discussed at the next Revolutionary Films meeting on Jan. 14. The night before, the Rockbridge Historical Society will also host its next Revolutionary Books meeting, which will consider Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien’s writings and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “Beyond Vietnam.” and Young” and others from Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning trilogy “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” and “Heaven & Earth” will be accompanied by filmed interviews with the directors, journalists, historians, and veterans who’ve collectively brought those narratives to mass audiences.
Together, January’s events model what RHS is structuring as complementary three-year series. Built around a series of transhistorical themes in American history, bimonthly meetings of Revolutionary Books will alternate between a shared set text for all, followed two months later by a “bring your own” follow-up.
“With those choices, attendees will expand the reach of those themes by discussing and recommending relevant favorites of their own,” said Wilson. “By balancing some deep-dives with other short digital supplements, we hope to arrange a responsive, inviting community circle, enriched by a wider array of collective experience and interest, beyond the rhythms of a more traditional ‘book club’ or film repertoire. Different cinematic genres will illuminate those perspectives further, drawing from prizewinning classics and documentary features, sampling from expansive series and curating targeted excerpts to spur personal curiosities, yet further.”
Presently, both series plan to meet on the second Tuesdays and Wednesdays of each even-numbered month, gathering at public libraries and, in time, rotating to different community sites for even more accessible reach and topical emphasis.
Area residents are encouraged to follow RHS Facebook and RHS Instagram for updates, trailers, and reviews, and write Wilson at [email protected] with questions about the initiatives.
“We’re also eager to field recommendations for titles and topics to be canvassed in the commemorative window now fully at hand: spanning the 250th anniversary celebrations of American independence this July 4, and the establishment of Lexington and Rockbridge County in January 1778, during the heart of the Revolutionary War,” said Wilson.
“We hope you’ll encourage friends, family, and favorite community organizations to join in the range of events marking this landmark ‘Three-Year Birthday Party,’” said Wilson.
